THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
MRS.  VIRGINIA  B.  SPORER 


OUR 
ENGLISH   COUSINS 


BY 


RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

HARPER     &     BROTHERS 

PUBLISHERS      1903 


Copyright,  1894,  by  HARPER  &  BROTHERS. 


All  rights  reserved. 


College 
Library 

DR 


TO 

STEPHEN  BONSAL 


1182211 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

I      THREE   ENGLISH    RACE    MEETINGS      ....  I 

II      A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND      ...  48 

III      UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD        .      .      .  106 

IV      LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON 147 

V      THE   WEST  AND   EAST   ENDS   OF   LONDON    .      .  1 86 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGB 

RUNNING  WITH  THE  BOATS Frontispiece 

GOING  TO  THE  DERBY 5 

ON  THE  ROAD  TO  THE  DERBY 9 

AT  THE  DERBY 15 

THE  WELSHER 19 

THE  LAST  HORSE 25 

RETURNING  FROM  THE  DERBY 2g 

THE  ASCOT 33 

AT  HENLEY 39 

THE  HENLEY  PANORAMA ...  43 

"YOUR  CHAMBERS  ARE  INVADED*' 53 

"THEIR  GOOD  MEN  WHO  HAD  VOTES" 61 

"' GENTLEMEN,'  THE  CANDIDATE  WOULD  BEG".     ...  67 

"TOLD  YOU  SADLY  AS  HE  FIXED  YOUR  BATH".     ...  73 

"THE  WOMEN  RAN  INTO  THE  STREET" 79 

"THE  LADIES  IN  THE  WINDOWS  OF  THE  INN".    ...  85 

"THE  MOB  SEIZED  THE  HANGER-ON" gi 

"THEY  RAISED  THE  CANDIDATE  UP"   . 97 

"WERE  GATHERED  TO  WELCOME  us" 101 

AN   OXFORD    UNDERGRADUATE lit 

ON   THE   CHERWELL 121 

HOW    SOME   WEAR   THE   GOWN 13! 

DOING   A   BIT   OF   READING 14! 

THE   ROW — MORNING 153 

CHANGING   GUARD    AT    ST.  JAMES'S   PALACE l6l 

COACHES   AT   WHITEHALL 169 

THE   LAWN,  NEAR   STANHOPE 177 


X  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACK 

TAILPIECE 185 

"YOU  ARE  CONSTANTLY  INTRUDING" 189 

"PEOPLE  ONE  KNOWS  TAKE  ONE  FOR  A  BUTLER".    .     .  197 
"  NOTHING  TO  SHOW  FOR  IT  BUT  CLUBS  AND  THEATRES "  205 

SATURDAY  NIGHT  IN  THE  EAST  END 213 

RIVAL  DEALERS  IN  PETTICOAT  LANE 2IQ 

"  'OWIN'  TO  THE  UNEXPECTED  PRESENCE  OF  THE  PRINCE 
OF  WAILES  '"....         225 


OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS 

H  E  Derby,  whatever  it  may  have  been 
to  the  English  people  in  the  past, 
seems  to  be  chiefly  patronized  to-day 
by  coster-mongers  and  Americans.  I 
saw  at  the  last  Derby  about  forty  thousand  cos- 
ter-mongers and  gypsies,  and  some  twenty  thou- 
sand Americans,  equally  divided  between  well- 
known  actors  and  the  people  you  meet  on  the 
steamer.  Of  course  there  were  other  classes 
there,  the  idle  rich  and  royalties,  but  they  were 
not  on  the  scene  at  all.  They  had  as  little  to 
do  with  it  as  the  Roman  senators  painted  on  the 
back  drop  in  "  Julius  Caesar,"  who  remain  stiff 
and  dignified  whatever  befalls,  have  to  do  with 
the  super  senators  who  run  up  the  stage  crying 
"  Kill,  burn,  destroy  !"  They  formed  a  cluster 
of  black  hats  in  a  corner  of  a  grand-stand  that 
rose  as  high  as  the  Equitable  Building — a  wall 
of  human  beings  with  faces  for  bricks.  The  real 


2  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

Derby  crowd  was  that  which  stretched  about  this 
sheer  wall  upon  Epsom  Downs  over  miles  and 
miles  of  dusty  turf. 

To  approach  the  Derby  in  a  proper  frame  of 
mind,  and  to  get  its  full  values,  it  is  necessary  to 
start  sixteen  miles  away  from  it,  and  to  draw 
near  to  it  slowly  and  by  degrees,  and  with  humil- 
ity of  spirit.  The  spirit  in  which  you  return  de- 
pends on  different  things — generally  on  a  par- 
ticular horse. 

The  Derby  does  not  affect  London  town  itself. 
I  should  like  to  be  present  at  the  public  function 
which  could.  It  does  not  overthrow  it,  and  color 
it  with  blue  and  orange  and  black,  as  the  football 
match  does  New  York  on  Thanksgiving  Day.  It 
sprinkles  it  with  a  number  of  young  men  with 
field-glasses  about  their  persons,  and  a  few  more 
coaches  than  usual,  but  that  is  all.  You  reach 
the  Surrey  side  and  Clapham  Road  before  you 
note  the  difference.  And  from  there  on  for  six- 
teen miles  you  are  not  allowed  to  forget  that  you 
are  going  to  the  Derby.  You  go  on  a  coach  if 
you  wish  to  see  it  properly.  By  it  I  mean  the 
scene  and  the  people,  and  not  the  races,  which 
are  a  very  small  part  of  it',  and  which  are  like 
all  other  races  in  that  the  wrong  horse  comes 
in  first.  Clapham  Road  begins  at  the  other  end 
of  Vauxhall  Bridge,  and  as  your  coach  swings 
into  it  on  a  trot  you  take  your  place  in  a  pro- 
cession, and  only  trot  thereafter  by  accident. 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  3 

This  procession  is  made  up  of  coster- monger 
carts ;  coaches  with  ringing  horns  and  clanking 
harness;  omnibuses,  gay  with  enamelled  adver- 
tisements ;  open  trucks,  carrying  kitchen  chairs 
for  seats  ;  hansoms,  with  hampers  on  top  and 
mosquito  nettings  in  front ;  and  drays  and  vans 
and  every  make  of  wagon  known  to  the  Lon- 
don streets,  from  the  Mile  End  Road  of  White- 
chapel  to  the  Mile  of  Hyde  Park.  To  watch 
this  procession  on  its  way  thousands  of  men  and 
women  line  the  two  sidewalks  and  fill  the  win- 
dows of  houses,  the  family,  on  the  first  floor, 
dressed  for  the  occasion,  and  the  nurse -maids 
and  house-servants  hanging  out  of  the  windows 
above  them.  These  latter  are  amused  or  envi- 
ous, as  the  case  may  be,  and  express  themselves 
accordingly. 

In  the  procession  the  coster-monger  predomi- 
nates. There  is  generally  not  less  than  six  of 
him  in  one  cart,  with  the  poor  little  "  moke,"  as 
they  for  some  unknown  reason  call  their  donkey, 
almost  invisible,  save  for  his  ears  and  his  little 
legs,  that  go  pluckily  twinkling  in  and  out  from 
beneath  the  legs  of  his  owner,  which  are  stretched 
along  the  shaft  and  encircle  his  neck. 

"  Six  men  and  only  one  donkey !"  some  one 
exclaimed  to  a  coster  after  the  races. 

"  And  why  not  ?"  said  the  man.  "  We  all  on 
us  'ad  whips." 

The  London  coster  is  quite  as  typical  in  his 


4  OUR   ENGLISH    COUSINS 

way  as  the  London  policeman.  He  wears  a  white 
and  blue  dotted  kerchief  as  the  badge  of  all  his 
race,  and  a  high-cut  waistcoat  and  a  full  long- 
tailed  coat,  both  strung  with  pearl  buttons  as 
closely  as  they  can  be  sewed  together.  If  he  is 
very  smart  he  has  his  trousers  slashed  like  a  Mex- 
ican vaquero's,  with  a  triangle  of  black  velvet  and 
more  pearl  buttons.  This  is  his  unofficial  uni- 
form. Many  of  the  gypsies  wear  it  too,  and  it  is 
all  the  more  picturesque  because  it  is  unofficial. 
He  pays  more  than  he  can  afford  for  one  of  these 
suits,  and  they  are  handed  down  from  father  to 
son,  and  so  in  their  time  see  many  Derbys,  and 
Sunday  outings  at  the  Welsh  Harp,  and  bank 
holidays.  He  leaves  Farrington  Road  or  Spital- 
fields  or  Whitechapel  at  four  in  the  morning  of 
Derby  day,  and  so  reaches  it  about  one  in  the 
afternoon,  after  many  halts.  If  he  is  a  good  cos- 
ter, one  who  jumps  upon  his  mother  but  seldom 
and  only  beats  his  wife  when  drunk,  he  takes  the 
"  missus  "  and  the  "  nipper  "  and  two  or  three 
pals  with  him.  If  he  is  not  married,  he  gives 
the  seat  of  honor  to  his  sweetheart,  or  his  "  do- 
ner,"  as  he  calls  her.  Her  badge  of  office  is  a 
broad  silver  chain  with  a  large  silver  locket  at- 
tached, and  a  bonnet.  She  can  also  be  told  by 
the  way  she  bangs  her  hair.  The  silver  chain  is 
inevitable;  the  bonnet  is  wonderful.  The  coster 
girls  pay  for  these  latter  a  sixpence  a  week  on 
the  instalment  plan,  and  some  of  these  bonnets 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE   MEETINGS  J 

from  Petticoat  Lane  cost  as  much  as  the  mil- 
liners on  Bond  Street  ask  for  theirs.  But  the 
coster  girl  gets  much  more  for  her  money.  Her 
bonnet  is  as  broad  as  a  sombrero,  slanting  down 
in  front  over  her  eyes  and  hair,  and  towering  at 
the  back  above  her  head,  covered  with  colored 
feathers  and  ribbons  and  velvet.  This  bonnet  is 
as  characteristic  and  local  to  the  coster  girls  of 
the  east  of  London  as  are  the  gold  head-dresses 
to  the  women  of  Scheveningen. 

It  is  necessary  to  give  the  coster -monger  so 
much  space  because  the  Derby  really  belongs  to 
him,  although  he  does  not  grudge  you  the  spec- 
tacle. He  rather  enjoys  your  being  there.  He 
considers  catching  your  eye  a  sufficient  introduc- 
tion, and  bids  you  with  solicitude  to  be  careful 
of  your  health,  and  asks,  "Wot  cheer,  govenor?" 
or  exclaims,  ecstatically :  "  My !  wot  noice  laidies 
you  'ave  got  along  o'  you  ;  hairit  you  ?  'Er  with 
the  straw  'at  in  particular''  Or  he  will  stop  sud- 
denly in  the  middle  of  his  song  (for  every  wagon- 
load  sings,  so  that  as  you  go  along  you  are  stead- 
ily passing  out  of  the  burden  of  one  melody  into 
the  rhythm  of  another),  and  standing  up,  cry, 
warningly  :  "  Don't  you  listen  to  'im,  laidy.  'E's 
a-deceiven  of  you.  It's  just  'is  gammon.  Ahh  1 
you  sees,  I  knows  you." 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  this  sort  of  thing.  It 
is  extremely  funny,  or  rough  and  vulgar,  if  you 
like,  but  that  is  really  no  reason  why  English- 


8  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

women  of  the  better  class  should  not  see  it,  as 
none  of  them  apparently  have  done.  That,  how- 
ever, touches  on  a  national  characteristic  which 
would  take  very  long  to  explain,  even  were  it  not 
to  me,  at  least,  still  unintelligible. 

After  two  hours  you  draw  away  from  the  solid 
rows  of  suburban  villas,  with  immortal  names 
painted  on  their  very  little  door-posts,  and  drive 
by  parks,  and  into  villages  and  past  public-houses, 
in  front  of  which  hundreds  of  wagon-loads  have 
been  emptied,  and  where  the  occupants,  having 
been  refreshed  and  enlivened,  are  taking  the  stiff- 
ness out  of  their  limbs  by  dancing  on  the  very 
dusty  village  green,  the  "  doners  "  in  their  young 
men's  Derby  hats,  and  the  young  men  in  the 
marvellous  bonnets  aforesaid.  It  is  the  noisiest 
and  the  best-natured  of  crowds,  and  the  thirstiest, 
for  the  public-houses  apparently  are  not  frequent 
enough,  and  many  wagons  carry  their  own  kegs 
of  ale  on  temporary  tables  running  down  the 
centre,  upon  which  the  occupants  sprawl,  lean, 
and  pound  with  their  pewter  mugs. 

The  commons  and  parks  give  way  to  broad 
fields  and  bunches  of  trees  and  hedges,  and  the 
procession  breaks  into  a  trot  and  breathes  the 
fresh  air  thankfully ;  or  we  pass  between  the  high 
stone  walls  of  some  great  estate,  and  can  see  the 
tennis-court  from  the  top  of  the  coach,  and  the 
owner  and  his  friends,  even  at  this  early  hour, 
taking  tea,  which  in  England  is  like  a  motion  to 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE   MEETINGS  II 

adjourn.  Even  this  far  from  town  small  boys, 
very  red  of  countenance  and  covered  with  dust, 
accompany  us  on  our  way,  turning  cart-wheels  or 
somersaults,  and  landing  heavily  on  their  backs, 
only  to  scramble  up  again  and  run  after  us  to 
call,  "  Throw  us  your  mouldy  coppers,  sir,"  or 
"  'Ope  you'll  pick  the  winner,  sir."  At  one  place 
hundreds  of  orphans,  in  the  uniform  of  the  asy- 
lum to  which  they  belong,  are  ranged  behind  a 
hedge  under  the  care  of  sweet-looking  teachers, 
and  cheer  wildly  and  continually,  like  a  mob  in  a 
play,  apparently  at  the  prospect  that  some  one  at 
least,  if  not  themselves,  is  going  to  enjoy  himself. 
And  men  throw  coppers,  for  which  they  scram- 
ble. It  struck  me  that  all  the  dear  little  girls  in 
mob-caps,  and  the  sweet  little  boys  in  regimentals 
playing  so  bravely  in  the  asylum  band,  were  learn- 
ing a  very  curious  lesson  along  that  dusty  high- 
way, and  that  making  beggars  of  them,  and  ob- 
jects of  careless  pity  from  such  a  mob,  would  be 
hardly  worth  in  years  to  come  the  few  pennies 
which  the  day  brought  in. 

To  many  of  the  crowd  the  Derby  was  an  old 
story,  and  to  wear  away  the  hours  they  played 
cards  on  the  tables  placed  in  their  vans,  or  danced 
up  and  down  the  confined  limits  of  the  wagon, 
while  the  others  beat  time  on  their  knees.  The 
good -nature  is  the  most  marked  feature  of  the 
day,  and  quite  well  worth  remarking  when  one 
considers  that  thousands  of  drivers  are  handling 


12  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

from  four  horses  to  one  donkey  each,  and  that 
each  is  trying  to  get  ahead  of  the  one  imme- 
diately in  front,  and  that  each  thinks  his  partic- 
ular animal  is  best  entitled  to  take  and  to  hold 
the  right  of  way.  Nothing,  I  think,  speaks  more 
highly  of  the  Englishman's  inborn  knowledge  of 
driving,  whether  he  be  a  butcher-boy  or  Arthur 
Fownes,  than  this  procession,  three  deep  and  six- 
teen miles  long,  on  Derby  day,  with  not  a  wheel 
gone  nor  a  broken  shaft  to  mark  the  course. 

It  is  one  o'clock  before  you  leave  the  cultivated 
lands  behind,  and  toil  slowly  up  the  steep  hill  to 
the  downs,  where  the  white  dust  rises  suddenly 
like  a  mist  and  shuts  out  the  rest  of  the  world, 
leaving  you  in  a  white  cloud,  which  blinds  and 
suffocates  you.  It  makes  you  understand  the 
mosquito  nets  in  front  of  the  hansoms  and  the 
blue  and  green  veils  around  the  men's  hats. 

It  is  a  dust  which  conceals  everything  from 
view  except  the  rear  of  the  coach  just  in  front 
and  the  flashes  of  light  where  the  sun  strikes  on 
a  piece  of  brass  mounting.  It  is  like  moving 
through  a  fog  at  sea.  One  hears  the  crack  of  the 
whips  and  the  creaking  of  wheels  and  leather  all 
around,  and  the  half-hearted  protest  of  some 
guard  on  his  horn,  but  one  can  only  imagine 
what  the  dust  hides,  and  comes  out  of  it  on  the 
top  of  the  downs  as  out  of  a  Turkish  bath,  gasp- 
ing and  tearful,  and  wondering  if  those  other 
people  know  how  white  and  bedraggled  and  hag- 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE    MEETINGS  13 

gard  they  look.  The  top  of  the  downs  is  one 
vast  encampment  —  an  encampment  without  ap- 
parent order  or  government,  with  every  dust- 
covered  hedge  in  sight  lined  with  picketed  horses 
and  donkeys,  and  with  hundreds  more  grazing 
along  lines  of  rope  which  early  risers  have  stretched 
for  your  convenience  and  their  possible  profit. 
You  must  pass  through  a  mile  of  this  impromptu 
stabling  before  you  reach  the  race-track  proper, 
and  between  rows  and  rows  of  carts  resting  upon 
their  shafts,  and  hansom -cabs  with  the  driver's 
seat  pointing  skyward,  and  omnibuses  abandoned 
for  the  time  to  gypsies  and  hostlers.  It  is  a 
bivouac  as  great  as  that  of  an  army  corps.  In 
the  centre  of  these  open-air  stables  rises  the  grand- 
stand, with  its  back  towards  London.  It  is  the 
highest  grand-stand  in  the  world,  and  the  people 
on  the  top  of  it  cannot  be  recognized  from  the 
ground  even  with  an  opera -glass.  It  faces  one 
end  of  a  horseshoe  track — a  turf  track,  with  stout 
rails  on  either  side  of  it.  In  the  centre  of  this 
horseshoe  track  is  a  valley ;  and  this  valley,  and 
the  track,  and  the  downs  beyond  the  horseshoe 
track,  are  covered  for  miles  with  what  looks  like 
a  succession  of  great  and  little  circuses  and  their 
accompanying  side-shows.  There  is  not  a  row  of 
booths  here  and  a  bunch  of  tents  there,  but  long 
irregular  avenues  and  streets  built  of  booths  and 
flag-covered  tents,  with  canvas  pictures  for  walls, 
stretching  on  beyond  one  another  for  a  mile,  like 


14  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

a  fighting  line  of  old  battle-ships  with  all  their 
canvas  set  and  all  their  signals  flying;  and  in 
among  these  are  thousands  of  people  pushing 
and  shoving  and  moving  in  black  blocks  and 
streams  and  currents,  with  a  soldier's  scarlet  coat 
or  a  gypsy's  yellow  shawl  showing  for  an  instant, 
and  then  disappearing  again  in  the  ocean  of  black 
heads  and  white  faces. 

The  Derby  is  quite  free — at  least,  unless  you 
mount  the  monster  grand-stand,  or  go  inside  the 
enclosure  between  it  and  the  track ;  but  the  rest 
is  as  free  as  a  Lord  Mayor's  show,  and  on  the  day 
that  I  was  there  sixty  thousand  people  availed 
themselves  of  this  freedom.  In  a  country  given 
to  spectacular  exhibitions — Wimbledons,  jubilee 
processions,  boat-races,  naval  reviews — the  Derby 
strikes  one  as  quite  the  most  remarkable  thing  of 
this  sort  that  the  English  do,  and  they  do  them 
all  particularly  well.  In  no  other  country,  I  be- 
lieve, do  sixty  thousand  people  travel  sixteen 
miles  to  camp  out  around  a  race-track,  and  then 
break  up  camp  and  march  back  again  the  same 
night. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  do  not  all  march 
back  the  same  night.  The  gypsies  and  the  fa- 
kirs, and  hundreds  of  others  around  the  train- 
ing-stables (for  the  racing  at  Epsom  Downs  lasts 
a  week),  remain  overnight,  and  this  encampment, 
with  the  fires  burning  in  the  open  air  and  the 
lights  showing  from  under  the  canvas,  makes  as 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE  MEETINGS  If 

weird  and  wonderful  a  scene  as  that  of  the  Derby 
day  itself.  But  in  the  morning  this  sleeping 
bivouac  rouses  itself,  and  the  tents  go  up  as 
easily  as  umbrellas,  and  an  army  of  people  crowd 
the  track  and  the  grounds  as  thickly  as  the  City 
Hall  Square  is  crowded  on  the  night  of  a  Presi- 
dential election.  The  coaches  face  the  grand- 
stand from  the  opposite  side  of  the  track.  They 
are  packed  as  closely  together  as  the  omnibuses 
in  front  of  the  Bank  of  England,  so  that  one 
could  walk  for  half  a  mile  from  one  to  the  other 
of  them  without  once  touching  the  ground.  The 
first  which  come  of  these  take  the  best  places, 
and  the  last  are  crowded  in  on  them  by  the  ser- 
vants and  the  unemployed,  who  take  out  the 
leaders  and  shove  with  the  wheelers  until  they 
have  locked  wheels  with  two  other  coaches,  and 
have  apparently  entangled  themselves  forever. 
These  coaches  form  a  barrier  three  rows  deep 
along  the  course,  and  the  dresses  of  the  women 
on  top  of  them,  and  the  luncheons,  before  their 
pyramids  are  demolished,  make  the  place  look 
like  a  succession  of  picnics  in  mid-air. 

Back  of  these,  down  the  valley  between  the 
curves  of  the  horseshoe,  are  tents  and  the  rings 
where  wooden  horses  circle  and  prance,  and  rail- 
road cars  which  mock  the  laws  of  gravity,  dash- 
ing up  and  down  wooden  hills,  and  where  there 
are  shooting-galleries  and  boxing- booths  and 
swings,  and  rows  after  rows  of  gypsy  wagons 


l8  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

(little  green  and  red  houses  on  wheels,  with  a 
pair  of  steps  at  the  back  like  a  bathing-machine), 
and  solid  phalanxes  of  shouting  book-makers. 
These  last  stand  in  couples,  dressed  ridiculously 
alike,  as  a  guarantee  that  they  do  not  intend  to 
lose  themselves  in  the  crowd,  and  with  banners 
behind  them  to  tell  who  they  may  be,  from 
whence  they  come,  and  what  a  very  old  and 
trustworthy  firm  theirs  is. 

"  Good  old  Ted  Mark,"  and  "  Splasher  Getters 
of  Manchester  " ;  "  Diamond  Jack  of  Birming- 
ham " — "  Fair  play,  quick  pay,  and  civility  to 
all "  is  his  motto — and  "  Ikey  Kennedy,  the  Mu- 
sic Hall  pet,"  in  a  gilded  four-wheel  wagon,  with 
his  portrait  in  oils  on  the  sides.  There  are  doz- 
ens of  such  wagons  and  hundreds  of  book-mak- 
ers. Some  in  white  flannel  caps,  clothes,  and 
shoes,  or  all  in  red  silk  with  red  silk  opera-hats, 
others  in  evening  dress  with  broad  sashes  span- 
gled with  bright  new  shillings  like  shirts  of  chain 
armor,  and  others  in  velvet  or  Scotch  plaids. 
They  are  grotesque,  loud-voiced,  red-faced,  and 
each  couple  identical  in  appearance,  even  to  the 
flower  in  the  button-hole  and  the  scarf-pin.  They 
will  take  anything  from  a  shilling  to  a  five-pound 
note,  and  they  are  given  a  great  many  of  both. 

But  if  you  would  get  something  for  your  money 
other  than  a  ticket  with  "  Lucky  Tom  Tatters  of 
London  "  printed  upon  it,  you  can  throw  wooden 
balls  at  cocoanuts  in  front  of  a  screen,  or  at  wood- 


THREE    ENGLISH    RACE    MEETINGS  21 

en  heads,  or  at  walking-sticks,  and  perhaps  get 
one  of  the  cocoanuts,  or  a  very  bad  cigar.  You 
can  also  purchase  a  purse  in  which  you  have  seen 
a  gentleman  in  a  velveteen  coat  put  a  sovereign, 
which  is  not  there  when  you  open  the  purse,  or 
bet  on  which  one  of  three  cups  the  little  round 
ball  is  under,  or  buy  wooden  doll  babies  with 
numerous  joints  to  stick  in  your  hat-band,  or  col- 
ored paper  flowers  and  feathers  to  twine  around 
it,  these  latter  being  traditional.  People  always 
put  doll  babies  in  their  hats  after  the  Derby — 
you  can  see  them  in  Frith's  picture ;  "  it  has  al- 
ways been  done,"  they  will  tell  you,  if  you  ask, 
and  that  is  all  the  reason  you  can  obtain,  or  that 
you  desire  if  you  are  a  good  Englishman.  There 
are  also  numerous  venders  of  tin  tubes  and  dried 
pease,  with  which  joyous  winners  on  their  way 
home  pepper  the  necks  of  the  helpless  footmen 
on  the  back  of  the  coach  in  front,  and  of  pewter 
squirts  filled  with  water  with  which  they  refresh- 
en the  dust-covered  "bobbies";  or,  if  you  are 
a  sportsman,  you  can  watch  a  prize-fight  which 
is  always  just  about  to  begin,  or  shoot  at  clay 
pipes  with  a  rifle,  or  try  your  strength  by  pound- 
ing a  peg  into  the  ground. 

These  are  all  very  moderately  priced  pleasures, 
but  there  is  much  you  can  get  for  nothing  at  all. 
You  do  not  have  to  pay  to  see  the  clown  on  stilts 
walking  above  the  heads  of  the  crowd,  and  fright- 
ening Eliza  by  putting  one  leg  over  her  shoulder 


13  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

and  trusting  that  she  will  not  jump  the  wrong 
way ;  or  to  see  the  man  who  allows  any  one  in 
the  crowd  to  break  with  a  sledge-hammer  the 
rocks  which  he  holds  on  his  breast,  and  who  jumps 
up  unharmed  and  dashes  after  the  dissolving  au- 
dience with  his  tattered  hat. 

You  see  so  much  to  entertain  you  on  the 
grounds  that  you  forget  about  the  races,  al- 
though the  sight  from  the  coach  is,  in  its  broader 
view,  quite  as  amusing  and  impressive  as  the  one 
you  obtain  by  pushing  through  the  crowd.  In- 
stead of  moving  about  to  see  other  people,  the 
other  people  come  to  call  on  you,  chiefly  musi- 
cians of  several  nationalities,  who  sing  sentimen- 
tal songs  sentimentally  to  the  young  women  on 
the  next  drag,  who  try  to  pretend  they  do  not 
know  that  they  are  being  made  to  look  ridicu- 
lous ;  and  little  yellow-haired  girls  on  stilts,  who 
seat  themselves  on  the  box,  and  draw  their  stilts 
up  out  of  the  way,  and  sing,  "  I'm  er  blushin'  bud 
of  innercence;  papa  says  I'm  a  great  expense  "  i 
and  troops  of  burnt-cork  comedians  who  pretend 
they  know  the  people  on  the  coaches,  and  who 
flatter  the  weak  in  spirit  by  crying :  "  Ahh !  glad 
to  see  your  lordship  'ere  to-doiy.  I  'ain't  for- 
got the  'arf-crown  your  lordship  give  me  when 
your  lordship  won  that  pot  of  money  off  King 
Remus,  Kemton  Park  Waiy.  Your  lordship  al- 
lus  wos  a  good  one  at  pickin'  a  winner.  Now, 
wot  can  we  sing  at  yer  lordship's  command  ter- 


THREE  ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  23 

day  ?*'  At  which  his  lordship,  being  a  real-estate 
agent  from  Chicago,  is  extremely  pleased,  and 
commands  his  favorite  melody. 

There  are  a  great  many  Americans  at  the  Der- 
by. It  is  something  of  which  they  have  all 
heard,  and  in  consequence  want  to  see.  An  Eng- 
lishman has  also  heard  about  it,  but  that  does 
not  necessarily  make  him  want  to  see  it. 

There  are  some  things  there  which  no  one  cares 
to  see — men  fighting  in  the  dirt  for  the  chicken 
bones  some  groom  has  scraped  off  a  plate  and 
thrown  between  the  wheels,  and  men  who,  when 
some  one  on  the  coach,  seeing  this,  hands  them 
decent  food  in  a  decent  way,  tremble  all  over  as 
a  dog  does  when  you  hold  up  a  stick,  and  choke 
the  food  into  their  mouths  with  one  hand  while 
the  other  wasted  one  is  stretched  out  for  more,_ 
and  men  and  boys  sleeping  heavily  under  the 
very  feet  of  the  crowd,  worn  out  with  the  endless 
noise  and  excitement  and  the  sixteen-mile  walk 
and  drink,  and  the  young  bank  clerk  who  came 
overdressed,  and  was  suddenly  beset  on  all  sides, 
and  who  now  stands  stunned  and  silly  with  empty 
pockets  and  a  hole  in  his  scarf  to  show  where  his 
pin  had  been.  Or  one  sees  a  quick  congestion 
of  the  crowd  in  one  spot,  and  policemen  making 
through  it  like  men  through  water,  arm  over  arm, 
until  they  meet  around  and  rescue  some  poor 
wretch  of  a  book-maker  who  has  tried  to  sneak 
away  from  his  debts,  and  upon  whom  one  of  his 


24  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

creditors,  knowing  that  the  law  of  England  will 
not  recognize  a  gambling  debt,  has  called  down 
the  unwritten  law  of  the  race -track,  and  has 
hurled  the  cry  of  "  Welsher !" — an  awful  word, 
that  means  nothing  to  us,  but  which  sometimes 
on  an  English  race-course  means  death  from  man- 
handling. And  the  fellow  is  run  out  into  the 
track  trembling  with  terror  and  clinging  to  the 
officers  about  him,  with  his  tawdry  suit  of  velvet 
torn  from  his  back,  and  his  face  and  naked  shoul- 
ders covered  with  sweat  and  dust  and  the  blood 
that  shines  brilliantly  in  the  sunlight,  all  his  bla- 
tant, noisy  swagger  gone,  and  with  nothing  left 
but  an  awful  terror  of  his  fellow- men.  When 
Englishmen  used  to  deprecate  the  sad  prevalence 
of  lynch-law  in  some  parts  of  my  own  country,  I 
used  to  ask  them  if  they  had  ever  heard  a  man 
cry  "  Welsher  "  in  England,  and  they  would  fall 
back  on  the  evils  of  our  protective  tariff  and  of 
our  use  of  ice-water  at  dinner. 

The  races  at  the  Derby  are  very  beautiful  ex- 
amples of  how  grand  a  spectacle  a  horse-race  can 
be.  I  can  only  speak  of  them  as  a  spectacle,  and 
not  knowingly  in  sporting  phraseology,  because  a 
compositor  once  made  me  say  that  the  odds  were 
"  60  to  o,"  and  a  great  many  clever  sporting  edi- 
tors, whose  experience  was  limited  to  Guttenburg 
and  Gloucester,  and  several  English  touts  for 
the  racing-stables  that  advertised  in  their  papers, 
pointed  out  by  this  how  little  I  knew.  Until 


THREE    ENGLISH    RACE    MEETINGS  .        25 

these  gentlemen  spoke,  I  had  supposed  I  knew 
something  of  horse-racing  in  several  countries ;  I 
had  certainly  paid  for  my  experience.  But  since 
then  I  have  avoided  writing  of  horse-races,  except 
as  a  picturesque  and  pretty  institution. 

What  first  puzzles  one  at  the  Derby  is  where 
the  horses  are  going  to   find   room  to  run,  for 


v 


THE   LAST    HORSE 


the  track  is  blocked  with  the  mob,  which  stands 
doubtfully  fingering  the  sixpences  in  its  pockets, 
and  listening  to  the  young  men  who  are  selling 
tips  on  the  race  to  follow,  and  beseeching  the 
crowd  about  them  to  remember  what  they  fore- 
told at  the  Manchester  races  a  year  ago. 


26  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

"  Did  I  soiy  Orleander  would  win  ?  Did  I  ?  I 
arsk  you  now,  as  man  to  man,  did  I,  or  did  I  not  ? 
I  did.  Right,  sir,  I  did.  And  the  gents  wot  pa- 
tronized me  got  a  quid  for  every  bob  they  'ad  up. 
I  don't  spend  mot  toime  'anging  round  pubs,  / 
don't.  Fm  hup  every  mornin'  on  these  'ere  downs 
a-watchin'  these  'ere  'orses  run,  and  /  knows  wot's 
wot,  and  it's  all  writ  down  'ere  in  these  'ere  pieces 
of  paiper  which  I'm  givin'  away  for  a  tanner." 
Mixed  with  these  young  men  are  evangelists 
with  an  organ  on  wheels,  to  the  accompaniment 
of  which  they  sing  hymns.  They  are  not  the 
Salvationists,  though  one  sees  the  red  jerseys  of 
these  also,  but  soberly  clothed,  earnest-looking 
men,  perfectly  impassive  to  the  incongruity  of 
their  surroundings,  and  fervent  in  their  hope  of 
accomplishing  some  good.  They  have  as  large 
a  circle  about  them  as  has  the  tipster,  and  they 
are  too  familiar  a  sight  wherever  many  people 
are  gathered  together  in  England  to  be  either 
scoffed  at  or  encouraged.  But  when  the  bell 
rings,  all  of  these — tipster,  evangelist,  and  colored 
comedian — fly  before  the  important  business  of 
the  moment,  and  there  is  a  rush  to  the  rails, 
which  men  clutch  desperately  like  wrecked  mari- 
ners on  a  mast-head,  and  a  sudden  overflow  among 
the  carriages  as  the  mounted  police  ride  slowly 
along  the  length  of  the  track,  leaving  a  clear, 
broad,  green  road  behind  them. 

And  then  the  horses  canter  up  the  course,  and 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  27 

come  back  again  with  a  rush  of  colors  and  strain- 
ing necks  amid  what  is  almost,  for  so  large  a 
multitude,  complete  silence.  Englishmen  do  not 
make  themselves  heard  as  does  a  racing  crowd  in 
America.  The  most  interesting  effect  in  the  race 
to  one  who  is  looking  up  the  track,  and  who  is 
not  interested  in  the  finish,  is  what  seems  to  be 
a  second  race,  as  the  crowd  breaks  in  after  the 
last  of  the  horses  and  sweeps  down  the  track, 
making  it  appear  shortened  behind  as  the  horses 
move  forward. 

When  it  is  all  over  there  is  the  desperate 
hurry  of  departure,  the  harnessing  up  of  fright- 
ened horses,  and  the  collecting  of  the  stray  mem- 
bers of  the  different  coaching  parties,  and  a  great 
blowing  of  horns  and  cracking  of  whips,  and 
much  inelegant  language,  and  long  and  tiresome 
waits  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  each,  while  the 
great  mob  that  arrived  at  different  hours  tries  to 
get  out  and  depart  at  the  same  moment.  But  as 
soon  as  the  downs  are  cleared,  and  Clapham 
Road  is  reached,  the  procession  of  the  morning 
is  reformed  ;  the  crowds,  only  greater  in  number, 
line  the  way  on  either  side,  and  there  is  much 
more  singing  and  much  more  blowing  of  horns 
and  playing  of  accordions  and  airy  persiflage. 
The  coster  does  not  object  to  making  himself 
look  ridiculous.  He  rejoices  intensely  in  a  false 
nose  and  a  high  paper  cap.  He  would  not  feel 
that  he  had  enjoyed  the  day  or  done  it  proper 


28  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

honor  if  some  one  in  his  party  did  not  sing  or 
play  the  accordion,  and  if  all  of  them  did  not 
wear  plumes  in  their  pot  hats.  We  have  noth- 
ing which  exactly  corresponds  with  this  at  home  ; 
the  people  of  the  east  and  west  sides,  when  they 
go  off  for  a  day's  holiday,  do  not  make  them- 
selves ridiculous  on  purpose.  If  one  of  their 
party  wore  a  false  nose,  or  a  red  and  yellow  hat 
two  feet  high,  or  stuck  doll  babies  all  over  his 
person,  he  would  be  frowned  upon  as  being  too 
"  fresh."  The  day  is  not  complete  to  the  East- 
Side  tough  here  unless  he  helps  to  throw  some 
one  off  the  barge,  or  thrashes  the  gentleman  who 
wants  to  "  spiel "  with  his  girl.  And  the  Eng- 
lishman of  the  lowest  class  is  much  more  musi- 
cally inclined  than  his  American  brother.  From 
the  downs  to  High  Street,  Whitechapel,  there  is 
one  continual  burst  of  song — the  songs,  as  a  rule, 
it  is  interesting  to  note,  being  those  which  a  man 
of  an  entirely  different  class  had  written  for  audi- 
ences of  as  wholly  different  a  class,  but  which 
were  hailed  and  adopted  unanimously  by  the  peo- 
ple of  the  class  about  which  they  were  written. 
I  refer  to  Albert  Chevalier  and  his  coster-monger 
ditties.  One  sees  the  same  thing  in  the  way  the 
British  soldiers  in  India  sing  Mr.  Kipling's  bar- 
rack-room ballads,  and  the  zeal  with  which  the 
inhabitants  of  Cherry  Street  have  adopted  Mr. 
Braham's  "  Maggie  Murphy's  Home." 

Many  of  these  vocalists  fall  by  the  way-side, 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  3! 

under  a  hedge  or  against  the  walls  of  a  public- 
house,  and  the  waits  at  these  places  become 
more  general  and  more  frequent,  and  so  it  is 
quite  dark  before  you  reach  the  asphalt  again, 
and  find  the  streets  ablaze  with  light  and  rimmed 
with  black  lines  of  spectators  and  beggars,  who 
hope  you  have  had  a  lucky  day,  and  who  en- 
treat, with  a  desperation  which  recognizes  this 
to  be  the  last  chance  for  another  year,  that  you 
will  throw  them  what  remains  of  your  "  mouldy 
coppers." 

One  finds  the  Cup  day  of  Royal  Ascot  a  some- 
what tame  affair  after  the  rowdy  good -nature 
and  vast  extent  of  the  Derby.  It  is  neither  the 
one  thing  nor  the  other.  There  is  rather  too 
much  dust  and  too  frequent  intrusions  of  horses 
upon  the  scene  to  make  it  a  successful  garden- 
party,  and  there  are  too  many  women  to  make 
it  a  thoroughly  sporting  race  meeting.  There 
seem  to  be  at  least  four  women — generally  twins, 
to  judge  by  their  gowns — to  every  man.  The 
crowd  that  makes  the  Derby  what  it  is,  is  only 
present  at  Ascot  on  sufferance.  The  smart  peo- 
ple, to  whom  Ascot  primarily  and  solely  belongs, 
have  all  the  best  places  and  the  best  time ;  but 
even  the  best  time  does  not  seem  to  be  a  very 
good  time.  They  all  appear  to  be  afraid  of 
mussing  their  frocks,  which,  when  they  have  so 
many,  seems  rather  mean-spirited.  There  is  a 


32  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

track  at  Ascot  over  which  horses  run  at  great 
speed  at  irregular  intervals,  but  nobody  takes 
them  seriously.  One  is  either  back  in  the  royal 
enclosure  taking  tea,  or  behind  the  grand-stand 
on  the  lawn,  quite  out  of  sight  of  the  track,  or 
lunching  on  the  long  line  of  coaches  facing  it,  or 
in  the  club  and  regimental  tents  back  of  these, 
where,  for  all  one  can  see  of  it,  the  race  might 
be  coming  off  in  Piccadilly.  Every  well-known 
regiment  has  its  own  luncheon  tent,,  with  its 
soldier-servants  in  front,  the  native  Indians  in 
white  and  red  turbans  and  the  sailors  being  the 
most  successful.  Many  of  the  London  clubs 
have  their  tents  also,  and  the  pretty  women,  and 
the  big,  narrow-waisted  young  men,  all  of  whom 
look  and  walk  and  dress  alike — even  to  the  yel- 
low leather  field  -  glass  over  the  right  shoulder, 
which  never  comes  out  of  its  case — pass  from 
tent  to  te'nt,  and  from  coach  to  coach,  and  from 
the  Enclosure  to  the  grand-stand  throughout  the 
whole  of  the  day,  seeking  acquaintances  and 
luncheon,  and  tasting  horrible  claret-cup  and 
warm  champagne.  The  Ascot  races  in  '92  were 
under  the  especial  charge  of  the  Earl  of  Coventry, 
who,  as  master  of  the  Queen's  buck-hounds,  had, 
among  other  duties,  that  of  refusing  the  appli- 
cations of  five  thousand  people  for  a  place  in  the 
Enclosure.  This  in  itself  must  be  something  of 
a  responsibility,  although  it  is  likely  that  after 
one  has  refused  three  thousand,  the  other  two 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  35 

thousand  would  not  weigh  on  one's  mind.  It 
is  also  his  duty  and  pleasure,  when  the  court  is 
not  in  mourning,  to  ride  at  the  head  of  a  group 
of  richly  attired  gentlemen  leading  the  royalties 
in  their  carriages. 

This  is  a  very  pretty  sight.  The  horses  are  very 
fine,  and  the  "  pink  "  coats  very  red,  and  Lord 
Coventry  is,  as  he  should  be,  the  ideal  of  an 
English  gentleman  M.  F.  H.  He  only  clears  the 
track  once ;  after  that  the  ordinary  mounted  po- 
lice perform  this  service,  which  is  a  somewhat 
superfluous  duty,  as  the  crowd  go  on  with  their 
own  pursuits  whether  the  track  is  clear  or  not. 
The  Ascot  gowns  are  probably  the  most  striking 
effect  of  the  day ;  a  woman  would  recall  one  or 
two  of  them,  but  to  a  man  they  appear  as  a  daz- 
zling whole ;  they  are  the  first  and  the  last  thing 
he  sees ;  they  force  themselves  upon  him  before 
anything  else,  as  the  multitude  of  hansom-cabs 
on  a  London  street  press  on  the  eye  before  you 
recognize  which  street  it  is.  They  are  not  so 
beautiful  or  individual  as  are  the  gowns  at  the 
annual  steeplechase  at  Auteuil ;  they  would  nat- 
urally not  be,  as  the  toilettes  there  are  worn  by 
Frenchwomen. 

To  the  American  there  must  always  be  some- 
thing delightful  in  the  idea  of  the  Enclosure; 
but  the  reality  is  a  trifle  disappointing.  He  has, 
of  course,  outgrown  the  idea  that  royalties  look 
differently  from  other  people,  but  such  an  aggre- 


36  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

gation  of  social  celebrities  penned  up,  as  it  were, 
and  on  view  to  such  an  immense  mob,  seems  to 
promise  something  less  conventional.  But  it  is 
interesting  to  hear  the  present  bearer  of  a  very 
great  name  fuss  and  fret  because  there  are  two 
and  not  three  lumps  in  his  tea,  and  to  find  that 
the  very  much  made-up  lady  is  the  professional 
beauty,  and  not  the  young  and  very  beautiful  one 
who  is  laughing  so  heartily  at  a  song  of  a  colored 
comedian  on  the  other  side  of  the  rail,  and  that 
she  in  turn  was  once  a  clergyman's  daughter  and 
is  now  a  Personage  indeed,  and  "  walks  in  "  be- 
fore all  the  other  great  ladies  and  professional 
beauties  and  the  young  girl  friends  of  her  own 
age  with  whom  she  once  used  to  play  tennis  and 
do  parish  work.  It  is  also  curious  to  consider 
that  "only  a  brandy  -  bottle  "  stands  between  a 
shy  little  man  and  a  title  which  is  written  up  in 
bronze  from  Hyde  Park  corner  to  Westminster 
Bridge,  and  that  the  "  black  man,"  who  is  not  at 
all  black,  in  the  ill-fitting  gray  frock-coat,  is  a 
prince  of  half  of  India,  and  that  the  very  much 
bored  young  man  who  is  sitting  down  while  three 
women  are  standing  and  talking  to  him  is  a  man- 
ufacturer's son  who  is  worth  a  million  pounds 
sterling.  It  is  also  interesting  to  hear  the  police- 
men tell  the  crowd  outside  the  fence  that  they 
must  not  even  "  touch  the  railing."  It  makes 
you  think  you  are  at  a  circus,  and  listening  to 
the  keeper  warning  the  group  in  front  of  the 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE    MEETINGS  37 

lion's  cage.  I  really  could  not  see  what  harm  it 
would  have  done  had  they  happened  to  touch 
the  railing  itself,  especially  when  it  was  the  fault 
of  those  behind  who  were  so  keen  to  see.  And 
it  is  only  fair  to  say  that  the  lions  behaved  ad- 
mirably, and  were  quite  unconscious  of  the  pres- 
ence of  so  many  awe-stricken  spectators.  That 
is  all  that  saved  it  from  being  ridiculous  on  both 
sides  of  the  barrier. 

I  do  not  think  that  royalty  looks  well  in  the 
garb  of  every  day,  and  in  the  sunlight  to  which 
we  can  all  lay  claim.  Its  members  should  be  re- 
served for  functions  and  dress  parades  and  levees. 
Their  appearance  in  high  hats  and  in  jewels  worn 
with  cloth  walking-dresses  is  artistically  and  po- 
litically wrong.  It  is  'much  better  not  to  have 
royalty  at  all  than  to  have  a  democratic  royalty 
which  stops  to  laugh  at  Punch  and  Judy  shows, 
as  did  George  III.,  or  goes  to  smoking-concerts, 
as  do  some  of  his  descendants.  Such  conduct 
may  endear  royalty  to  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
but  it  is  extremely  annoying  to  the  visiting  Amer- 
ican. Royalty  is  either  royal  or  it  is  nothing; 
and  when  it  steps  off  the  red  plush  and  walks 
over  to  Tattersall's  to  back  Orvieto,  it  loses  its 
only  excuse  and  its  only  interest. 

What  impresses  you  most  about  Henley  is  the 
way  in  which  every  one  contributes  to  make  it 
what  it  is.  It  is  not  divided  into  those  who  are 


38  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

looked  at  and  those  who  look  on.  Every  one 
helps,  from  the  young  man  in  the  blue  coat  and 
the  red  ribbon  of  the  Leander  Club,  who  lounges 
on  the  house -boat,  to  the  perspiring  waterman, 
with  his  brass  shield  and  red  coat,  who  ferries 
you  from  one  bank  to  the  other.  The  chance 
spectator  gives  just  as  much  to  the  scene  as  does 
the  winner  of  the  Diamond  Sculls.  Every  one 
and  every  boat-load  is  part  of  a  great  panorama 
of  color  and  movement,  some  giving  more  than 
others.  Letty  Lind,  of  the  Gaiety  Theatre,  for 
instance,  under  her  lace  parasol  in  the  Gaiety  en- 
closure, is  more  pleasing  to  look  at  than  the  stout 
gentleman  who  is  bumping  everything  within 
reach  of  his  punt,  and  who  is  kept  busy  begging 
pardons  from  one  end  of  the  course  to  the  other; 
but  even  he  makes  you  smile  lazily,  and  so  con- 
tributes to  the  whole. 

You  are  impressed,  as  you  are  at  so  many  of 
the  big  English  out-of-door  meetings,  with  the 
system  and  the  order  of  the  thing,  and  with  the 
rules  which  govern  your  pleasure,  and  the  fact 
that  the  rules  which  control  the  Henley  week 
are  as  strictly  in  force  as  those  which  govern  the 
Bank  of  England,  and  are  quite  as  excellent. 
There  is  no  scrambling  for  places,  nor  mixture 
of  the  good  with  the  bad,  and  the  speculator, 
who  does  all  he  can  to  spoil  every  successful 
meeting  in  America,  from  the  football  matches 
and  the  Horse  Show  to  a  Paderewski  recital,  is 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE   MEETINGS  41 

unknown.  A  governing  committee,  or  board  of 
trustees,  or  some  such  important  body,  sit  in 
conclave  long  before  Henley  week,  and  receive 
applications  from  clubs  for  places  along  the  bank, 
and  from  families  for  portions  of  the  lawns,  and 
from  the  owners  of  house-boats  for  positions  on 
the  course.  And  the  board  of  trustees  decide 
who  shall  go  where  and  which  shall  have  what, 
and  the  lordly  house-boat  and  the  humble  fakir 
who  asks  room  on  the  opposite  bank  for  his 
cocoanut-stand  are  treated  with  equal  considera- 
tion. And  so  when  you  come  down  from  town 
in  your  flannels,  prepared  to  be  pleased  and  to 
enjoy  yourself,  you  find  the  scene  set,  and  the 
ushers  in  their  places,  and  your  seat  reserved  for 
you.  That  is  the  great  thing  about  England — 
its  law  and  order,  which  keeps  the  hired  carriages 
out  of  the  Row,  which  arrests  you  for  throwing 
an  envelope  out  of  a  hansom-cab,  and  which  con- 
trols the  position  of  your  canoe  at  Henley.  In 
America  it  is  every  one  for  himself.  In  England 
it  is  every  one  for  every  one  else,  and  though  the 
individual  may  occasionally  suffer,  the  majority 
rejoice.  It  may  annoy  you  to  find  that  you  must 
not  anchor  your  launch  to  a  house-boat,  and  leave 
it  there  while  you  walk  about  on  the  turf ;  but  if 
it  is  left  there  it  annoys  hundreds  of  others  who 
need  the  room  it  takes,  and  so  when  you  return 
you  will  find  that  the  river  police  have  removed 
it,  and  tied  it  up  at  some  place  where  lost  articles 


42  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

are  classified  and  cared  for.  This  hurts  your  feel- 
ings,  but  it  is  good  for  the  public. 

The  racing  is  a  very  small  part  of  Henley.  It 
must  necessarily  be  so  when  two  boats  only  can 
row  at  the  same  time,  and  when  the  advantage 
of  position  means  an  advantage  of  two  lengths 
to  the  crew  which  pull  under  the  shelter  of  the 
house-boats.  An  arrangement  so  absurd  as  that 
cannot  be  considered  as  coming  under  the  head 
of  serious  sport.  Henley  is  a  great  water  picnic, 
not  a  sporting  event;  it  is  the  out-of-door  life, 
the  sight  of  the  thousands  of  boats  and  thousands 
of  people  in  white  and  colors,  all  on  pleasure  bent, 
and  the  green  trees,  and  beautiful  flowers  of  the 
house-boats,  and  the  colored  lanterns  at  night  and 
the  fireworks,  which  make  Henley  an  institution. 
It  strikes  one  at  first  as  being  very  small,  as  it 
really  is,  much  smaller  than  the  name  and  fame 
of  the  race  and  place  lead  one  to  expect. 

You  enter  into  the  spirit  of  Henley  when  you 
get  your  ticket  in  town,  and  find  hundreds  of 
young  men  and  maidens  crowding  the  platform, 
and  dressed  as  no  one  would  dare  to  dress  in 
New  York  city  —  in  the  most  barbarous  blazers 
and  brilliant  boating  suits — the  sort  of  garments 
men  or  girls  might  have  worn  a  few  years  ago  at 
the  Pier  or  at  Bar  Harbor,  but  which  they  would 
certainly  not  expose  to  the  stares  of  Broadway, 
or  to  the  criticisms  of  the  idlers  around  a  railroad 
station.  America  is  a  fine  free  country  in  many 


THREE   ENGLISH   RACE   MEETINGS  45 

ways,  but  England  is  much  more  free  in  one,  and 
allows  her  subjects  or  the  strangers  within  her 
gates  to  dress  as  they  please,  and  where  they 
please.  Hundreds  more  of  such  holiday-looking 
beings  met  the  special  trains  at  Henley  station, 
and  from  that  on  you  see  no  more  round  hats, 
or  black  coats,  or  varnished  boots.  The  whole 
boating  fraternity  of  the  Thames  seems  to  have 
been  turned  into  the  queer,  quaint  town,  with  its 
crooked  streets  and  more  crooked  red  roofs,  and 
every  one  is  sunburned  and  comfortable-looking 
and  happy. 

From  the  big  stone  bridge  to  a  point  a  mile 
below,  the  house-boats  stretch  along  one  bank, 
and  green  grass  and  high  trees  line  the  other, 
and  on  the  river  between  are  processions  and 
processions  of  boats,  so  close  that  the  owners 
touch  with  their  hands ;  they  move  along  in 
blocks,  or  pull  out  of  the  crush  by  stealing  a  tow 
from  the  boat  just  ahead.  A  skilful  and  agile 
athlete  could  cross  the  river  dry-shod  at  places 
by  stepping  from  one  boat  to  another.  The 
boats  and  their  crews  disappear  and  reappear 
like  a  shuttle  in  a  loom,  moving  slowly  in  and 
out,  or  shooting  ahead  if  they  are  small  enough, 
and  you  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  pretty  face  or  a 
more  than  striking  costume  only  to  lose  it  again 
as  another  boat  slips  in  the  way  like  the  slide  in 
a  stereopticon.  Whether  you  look  down  upon 
it  from  a  house-boat  or  are  in  the  midst  of  it  in  a 


46  OUR  ENGLISH   COUSINS 

canoe,  the  effect  is  more  brilliant  and  the  changes 
more  bewildering  than  are  the  advancing  and  re- 
treating lines  of  any  great  ballet  you  have  ever 
seen.  And  at  night,  even  when  you  try  to  sleep, 
you  still  see  the  colors  and  the  shining  sunlight 
flashing  on  the  polished  wood-work,  and  the  boats 
as  they  move  in  and  out  and  swallow  each  oth- 
er up. 

The  setting  of  the  scene  is  very  good.  Nature 
has  been  the  landscape-gardener  of  one  bank  with 
trees  and  gradually  rising  hills,  and  man  has  made 
the  other  brilliant  with  the  long  row  of  house- 
boats. A  house-boat  can  be  a  very  modest  and 
barn-like  affair,  or  it  can  suggest  a  bower  of  fresh 
flowers  and  a  floating  Chinese  pagoda  combined. 
Those  at  Henley  are  of  this  latter  kind.  Some 
of  them  were  pink  and  white,  with  rows  of  pink 
carnations,  or  white  and  gold,  with  hanging  vines 
of  green,  or  brilliantly  blue,  with  solid  banks  of 
red  geraniums.  Some  of  them  were  hidden  en- 
tirely by  long  wooden  boxes  of  growing  flowers, 
which  overflowed  and  hung  down  in  masses  of 
color  to  the  water's  edge,  and  all  had  gorgeously 
striped  awnings  and  Chinese  umbrellas  and  soft 
Persian  rugs  everywhere,  and  silk  flags  of  the 
owners'  own  design  flapping  overhead.  It  is 
only  a  step  along  the  gang-plank  to  the  lawn, 
and  so  on  down  the  line  to  the  next  open  space, 
where  some  club  has  a  bit  of  lawn  reserved  for 
it,  and  has  erected  a  marquee,  and  brilliant  stand- 


THREE   ENGLISH    RACE   MEETINGS  47 

ards  proclaiming  its  name,  and  guiding  the  thirsty 
and  hungry  member  to  its  luncheon-table. 

There  are  possibly  more  profitable  ways  of  em- 
ploying one's  time  and  more  intellectual  amuse- 
ments, but  you  are  very  near  to  content  when 
you  fall  back  in  a  wicker-chair  on  the  top  of  one 
of  these  water-houses,  and  feel  the  breeze  lifting 
the  awning  overhead,  and  hear  the  trees  scraping 
it  with  their  leaves ;  and  were  it  not  for  the  ne- 
cessity of  getting  up  to  watch  two  crews  of  young 
men  pulling  violently  past  at  an  unusual  speed, 
the  race-week  at  Henley  would  be  quite  ideal. 


II 


A  GENERAL  ELECTION  IN 
ENGLAND 

HERE  were  a  great  many 
questions  asked  in  Par- 
liament that  afternoon. 
They  seemed  unusually 
unprofitable  and  unusu- 
ally numerous,  the  Irish 
members,  as  always,  be- 
ing the  chief  offenders. 
Every  one  else  wanted 
to  hear  one  question  an- 
swered, a  question  which 
everybody  in  Great  Brit- 
ain was  asking  everybody  else,  and  which  only 
one  man  could  answer.  The  one  man  rose  at 
last,  with  dignity,  or  diffidently,  or  languidly,  as 
his  manner  chances  to  impress  you,  and  faced  a 
House  in  which  every  seat  was  filled,  from  the 
front  row  of  the  opposition  benches  to  the  high 
seat  behind  the  ladies'  lattice.  There  were  cheers 
from  the  government  benches,  and  then  a  sud- 
den and  impressive  silence.  The  First  Lord  of 
the  Treasury  broke  this  appreciative  silence  by  a 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  49 

review  of  what  had  been  done  by  the  govern- 
ment in  the  past,  what  it  hoped  to  do  in  the  lit- 
tle time  left  to  it,  and  what  it  would  be  forced 
to  leave  undone.  "And,"  he  added,  "Parliament 
will  probably  dissolve  not  before  the  first  part  of 
such  a  week,  nor  later  than  the  last  part  of  some 
other  week." 

The  members  of  the  Conservative  party,  who 
were  just  as  anxious  as  any  one  else  to  learn 
the  date  of  the  dissolution,  and  just  as  ignorant 
concerning  it,  looked  blank  at  this,  and  the 
opposition  laughed  and  cheered  ironically,  as 
though  to  admit  that  they  recognized  the  offi- 
cial utterance  as  not  only  unanswerable,  but  no 
answer  at  all.  But  they  took  it  good-naturedly, 
like  men  who  do  not  mind  being  played  with 
if  they  are  played  with  cleverly.  All  but  Mr. 
"  Willie  "  O'Brien,  who  raises  his  hat  and  begs 
to  inform  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  that, 
owing  to  the  government's  failure  to  push  a 
certain  Irish  bill,  he  will,  so  far  as  within  him 
lies,  oppose  the  progress  of  all  other  measures, 
to  which  threat,  delivered  in  a  hoarse,  angry 
whisper,  the  First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  answers 
by  a  polite  bow  of  the  head  and  a  gratified  smile. 
Then  the  House  emptied  itself,  and  every  one 
went  away  not  a  bit  wiser  than  when  he  had 
come  in. 

A  week  later  the  dissolution  came.  One  of 
the  hundred  differences  between  an  election  in 
4 


50  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

America  and  an  election  in  England  lies  in  the 
greater  length  of  time  which  must  elapse  before 
the  result  of  an  English  general  election  can 
be  decided.  With  us  the  election  of  a  Con- 
gressman decides  the  success  of  that  particular 
individual,  while  in  England  the  political  faith 
of  the  members  elected  decides  of  what  political 
complexion  the  government  shall  be,  and  from 
which  side  the  Prime  Minister  shall  be  chosen. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  the  election  of  each 
and  every  member  in  England,  no  matter  how 
unimportant  he  personally  may  be,  counts  just 
that  much  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  the 
interest  is  almost  as  keen  in  gaining  every  new 
seat  whether  the  man  who  holds  it  is  Mr.  Bal- 
four  or  the  unknown  son  of  his  father. 

This  system  of  spreading  the  election  over 
so  many  days  makes  a  general  election  much 
more  entertaining  to  the  visiting  American  than 
is  our  own,  where  the  people  vote  for  the  Pres- 
ident before  sundown  on  one  day,  and  know 
whether  he  is  elected  or  not,  and  whether  the 
government  has  changed  hands,  before  mid- 
night. The  English  make  very  much  more  of 
a  good  thing  when  they  have  it  than  that.  The 
American  has  only  one  fierce,  anxious  day  of  ex- 
citement and  doubt;  the  Englishman  stretches 
the  excitement  and  doubt  over  two  or  three 
weeks,  and  gives  every  one  a  chance  to  proph- 
esy things,  and  explain  them  when  they  do 


A  GENERAL   ELECTION   IN   ENGLAND  51 

not  turn  out  his  way,  and  say,  "  I  told  you  so," 
or,  "  I  knew  how  it  would  be,"  or,  "Wait  until 
you  hear  from  the  boroughs,"  and  then,  after 
you  have  heard  from  the  boroughs,  "  Wait  until 
you  have  heard  from  the  counties,"  and  to  hedge 
several  times  before  any  one  knows  exactly  who 
is  or  who  is  not  coming  into  power.  This  is 
the  most  important  difference  from  a  merely 
physical  point  of  view ;  the  others  are  the  ab- 
sence of  bribery  at  an  English  election,  and 
the  number  of  people  who  work  without  hope 
of  "  getting  anything  for  it,"  and  the  absence 
of  processions  and  brass-bands. 

I  suppose  the  elections  I  saw  in  England  at 
the  last  general  election  were  considered  legal 
enough,  but  I  sometimes  used  to  doubt  it.  I 
had  been  brought  up  properly  to  recognize  that 
no  man  can  hope  to  be  elected  without  the  sup- 
port of  enthusiastic  young  men  with  capes  and 
oil  lamps,  and  a  brass-band  to  every  fifty  men, 
and  every  third  band  playing  "  Marching  through 
Georgia."  I  saw  nothing  of  this  in  England,  and 
so  I  waited  patiently  to  hear  that  the  votes  had 
been  thrown  out  and  that  some  one  in  authority 
had  ordered  a  recount.  As  this  did  not  happen 
I  am  forced  to  believe  that  a  brass-band  is  not 
necessary  at  an  election,  though  I  still  think  it 
makes  it  a  little  more  sure.  It  is  like  being  mar- 
ried at  the  Mayor's  office  instead  of  being  mar- 
ried with  ushers  and  bridesmaids  and  rice.  I 


52  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

suppose  one  is  just  as  legal  as  the  other,  but  I 
should  be  as  sorry  to  go  to  Congress  without 
having  had  a  band  play  "  See  the  Conquering 
Hero  "  as  to  be  married  without  at  least  six  ush- 
ers wearing  my  scarf-pins. 

A  general  election  in  England  is  conducted 
by  the  entire  people.  There  may  be  a  Central 
Committee  somewhere,  as  there  is  at  home,  but 
its  work  is  not  so  conspicuous  to  the  stranger  as 
is  the  work  of  the  first  chance  acquaintance  he 
makes.  Recall  the  most  enthusiastic  politician 
of  your  acquaintance  during  the  late  campaign, 
and  multiply  him  by  the  whole  population  of 
Great  Britain,  and  you  obtain  an  idea  of  what 
a  hold  politics  has  on  the  people  of  England. 
By  this  I  mean  all  the  people,  the  voters  and 
the  non- voters,  the  gentleman  who  has  thirteen 
votes  in  different  counties  and  the  young  women 
of  the  Primrose  League  who  have  none,  the  land- 
lord whose  gates  bar  at  his  pleasure  the  oldest 
streets  in  London  and  the  lodger  who  pays  a 
few  shillings  for  the  back  room. 

Every  class  works  for  its  party  and  for  its  can- 
didate in  its  different  way.  Its  way  may  be  to 
address  mass  -  meetings  under  the  folds  of  the 
union -jack  or  to  humbly  address  envelopes,  but 
whatever  his  way  may  be,  every  one  helps.  As 
soon  as  Parliament  ends,  this  interest,  which  has 
been  accumulating  less  actively  for  some  time, 
becomes  rampant,  and  members  fly  north  and 


YOUR   CHAMBERS  ARE  INVADED" 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  55 

south,  taking  their  wives  with  them  to  sit  upon 
the  platforms,  and  their  daughters  to  canvass 
the  division,  and  their  friends  to  make  speeches, 
and  the  London  season  puts  up  the  shutters  un- 
til it  is  over.  In  London  itself  the  signs  of  the 
times  are  various  and  many.  You  can  see  it  in 
the  crowds  about  the  newspaper  bulletin-boards, 
in  the  desertion  of  the  Row  in  the  morning,  in 
the  absence  of  the  white  light  which  had  been 
burning  over  Westminster,  in  the  placards  on 
the  hoardings,  and  in  the  carts  and  broughams 
filled  with  voters  driving  in  elegance  to  the  polls. 
The  sandwich  men  on  Piccadilly  have  changed 
their  announcements  of  new  plays  and  Van  Beer's 
pictures  and  somebody  else's  catsup  to  "Vote 
for  Bings,"  and  you  look  down  an  irregular  line 
of  "Vote  for  Bings"  like  the  ghosts  in  Richard 
III.,  until  you  decide  that  no  matter  who  the 
rival  candidate  may  be,  you  will  not  vote  for 
Bings.  The  under-butler,  in  undress  livery,  tells 
you  that  her  ladyship  has  gone  to  the  country  to 
help  Sir  Charles  in  his  canvass,  and  will  not  be 
back  for  a  fortnight ;  and  men  you  ask  to  dinner 
write  you  a  week  later  from  Ireland  to  say  they 
have  been  attending  the  Ulster  Convention,  and 
speak  of  it  as  a  much  more  important  event  than 
your  dinner;  and  your  chambers  are  invaded  by 
Primrose  Dames,  who  cause  your  landlady  to 
look  upon  you  with  suspicion,  and  who  seem  to 
take  it  as  a  personal  grievance  and  as  an  inten- 


56  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

tional  slight  on  your  part  that  you  are  an  Amer- 
ican and  not  entitled  to  a  vote. 

So  I,  personally,  left  London  and  followed  the 
campaign  through  the  fortunes  of  one  candidate. 
And  as  his  canvass  resembled  that  of  others, 
more  or  less,  I  will  try  to  show  through  it  what 
an  English  election  is  like.  My  Candidate's  fort- 
unes were  very  pleasant  to  follow,  because  his 
canvass  was  conducted  with  much  picturesque- 
ness  in  the  form  of  rosettes  and  outriders,  and 
was  full  of  incident  and  local  color,  the  local  col- 
or being  chiefly  red. 

It  might  have  been  my  luck  to  judge  an  Eng- 
lish election  by  the  efforts  of  a  candidate  un- 
known to  the  borough  he  wished  to  represent, 
who  would  have  stood  at  the  direction  of  the 
Central  Committee,  and  who  might  have  been 
non  persona  grata  to  the  electors  of  even  his  own 
party.  In  this  case  he  would  have  put  up  at 
whichever  inn  favored  his  political  conviction, 
whether  it  was  the  better  one  or  not,  and  he 
would  have  canvassed  the  division  as  a  stranger, 
and  as  a  stranger  have  been  treated  accordingly. 
For,  as  you  probably  know,  a  gentleman  who  has 
lived  in  Wales  may  take  a  train  across  the  coun- 
try and  stand  for  a  division  in  Scotland,  or  vice 
versa,  just  as  Mr.  Stanley,  who  has  spent  a  great 
part  of  his  life  in  Africa,  stood  for  Lambeth,  be- 
cause the  Central  Committee  of  the  Liberal 
Unionists  assigned  him  to  that  division,  and  not 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  57 

because  he  was  wanted  there  ;  indeed,  as  was  ap- 
parent later,  he  was  not.  But  My  Candidate 
stood  for  a  county  division  where  his  people  had 
been  known  for  hundreds  of  years,  and  where  he 
had  been  known  for  at  least  thirty,  where  the 
game-keeper  remembered  having  handed  him  his 
first  breech-loader,  where  the  hunting  set  who 
follow  the  Duke  of  Rutland's  hounds  spoke  of 
him  as  a  ''clinker"  across  country,  and  where 
the  head  of  the  family  was  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
of  the  county,  and  the  owner  of  a  great  mansion 
which  was  familiarly  particularized  for  seventy 
miles  around  as  "  the  House."  And  while  all 
this  and  all  that  pertained  to  it  did  not  make  his 
calling  and  election  sure,  it  did  make  his  efforts 
to  render  that  election  sure  of  peculiar  interest 
to  the  visiting  American. 

My  first  intimation  that  I  was  to  follow  My 
Candidate's  fortunes  was  an  invitation  delivered 
by  himself  in  person  during  a  luncheon  in  town, 
into  the  third  course  of  which  he  plunged  unin- 
vited to  ask  if  I  would  like  to  go  down  to  a  po- 
litical meeting  of  his  that  night  and  have  my 
head  broken.  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  was  also  included 
in  the  invitation  because  he  happened  to  be 
there,  but  he  showed  a  lack  of  proper  sporting 
spirit,  and,  pleading  an  engagement,  returned  to 
the  consideration  of  the  fourth  course.  My  host 
let  me  off,  and  My  Candidate  took  me  in  a  train 
to  some  place,  where  a  carriage  met  us,  and  car- 


58  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

ried  us  the  rest  of  the  way  to  a  village  with  a 
queer  name.  In  that  way  was  I  pitchforked 
into  English  politics.  That  night  we  spoke  at 
the  school-house.  I  say  "we"  because  for  the 
few  weeks  which  followed  I  cast  my  lot  in  with 
the  Conservative  party  and  My  Candidate,  and 
though  I  did  not  speak  but  once,  on  which  un- 
happy occasion  I  turned  all  the  Conservatives  of 
sixty  years'  standing  into  rabid  Radicals,  I  always 
considered  myself  in  the  plural  number. 

We  had  a  small  audience.  It  was  as  large  as 
the  school-house  could  hold,  but  it  was  small, 
and  it  was  phlegmatically  and  delightfully  Con- 
servative. The  farmers  and  their  wives  sat  on 
the  front  row,  with  the  young  ladies  from  the 
rectory  and  the  local  political  agent.  Back  of 
these  were  the  agricultural  laborers,  who  corre- 
spond as  a  political  factor  to  our  sons  of  honest 
toil,  and  who  wore  suits  of  white  corduroy  and 
red  ties,  and  who  surprised  one  by  looking  exact- 
ly like  the  agricultural  laborers  in  the  Cliatterbox 
of  our  childhood  and  in  the  Graphic  Christmas 
numbers  of  to-day.  They  had  red,  sunburnt 
faces,  rmd  a  fringe  of  whiskers  under  the  chin, 
and  hair  that  would  not  lie  down.  When  they 
were  Conservatives  they  were  nice  and  sober 
and  clean -looking,  and  kept  their  lips  closely 
shut  while  they  observed  us  with  bovine  admira- 
tion and  approval ;  but  when  they  were  Radicals, 
they,  by  some  curious  mental  process,  became 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  59 

strikingly  unintelligent  and  boorish-looking,  and 
expressed  their  only  interest  in  the  proceedings 
by  howling  "  boo  "  or  "  yah."  My  Candidate  ad- 
dressed the  loyal  electors  of  the  village  in  a  hap- 
pily keyed  conversational  tone.  He  made,  on 
the  whole,  a  most  satisfactory  and  clever  speech, 
and  I  learned  for  the  first  time  how  to  say  "  hear, 
hear!"  in  such  a  way  as  to  convey  the  sound  of 
"  'ere,  'ere !"  and  the  idea  of  marked  approval  and 
deep  conviction  at  the  same  time.  And  even 
after  I  had  heard  him  deliver  the  same  speech  at 
four  villages  a  night  for  a  fortnight  I  still  pre- 
served my  admiration  for  it,  and,  as  I  recall  it 
even  now,  I  remember  it  fondly  as  a  satisfactory 
and  clever  oration. 

We  did  not  speak  beyond  ten  minutes,  and 
then  we  made  way  for  the  political  agent,  and 
bowed  to  our  electors,  and  got  into  the  carriage 
again,  and  gave  our  driver  the  name  of  the  next 
place.  I  have  followed  the  fortunes  of  politi- 
cians in  my  own  country  from  town-hall  to  local 
assembly-rooms  in  much  the  same  way,  and  I 
have  journeyed  from  the  Pavilion  Music-hall  to 
Islington  and  from  Islington  to  the  Surrey  side 
with  Albert  Chevalier  and  other  great  men  of 
the  London  music-halls,  and  I  was  reminded 
during  our  drives  from  one  queerly  named  village 
to  another  more  queerly  named  of  both  of  these 
former  experiences,  and  yet  there  was  a  vast  dif- 
ference. There  was  the  same  slamming  of  the 


60  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

carriage  door,  the  same  quick  gallop  of  horses, 
and  the  same  welcoming  hurrah  and  glare  of 
light  and  hand-clapping  at  the  end  of  it,  but  My 
Candidate's  road  did  not  lie  over  greasy  asphalt 
and  between  rows  of  lamps,  but  through  hedges 
in  full  bloom  and  in  the  soft  twilight  of  an  Eng- 
lish summer.  We  forgot  our  speech  and  the  last 
placard  of  the  opposition  in  the  silence  of  the 
fields,  and  at  the  sight  of  the  old-fashioned  gar- 
dens and  the  hedges  of  hawthorn  and  the  long 
single  rows  of  feathery  English  trees,  and  we 
stopped  discussing  "  one  man  one  vote  "  to  point 
out  the  spire  of  a  village  church  or  a  cluster  of 
thatched  cottages  with  soft  roof-lines  broken 
with  bunches  of  climbing-roses  and  curling  smoke. 
I  shall  remember  those  long  drives  in  the  late 
twilight  long  after  My  Candidate  has  become  a 
cabinet  minister,  and  even  after  I  have  forgotten 
his  satisfactory  and  clever  speech. 

The  next  place  received  us  calmly,  although 
we  came  into  it  at  a  gallop,  and  with  the  Candi- 
date's dog  barking  excitedly  from  the  carriage 
window.  Old  women,  who  could  not  vote, 
dropped  us  courtesies  from  the  cottage  half-doors; 
and  their  daughters,  who  could  not  vote  either, 
waved  their  aprons,  and  ran  by  the  wheels  to 
wave  their  hands  in  the  windows ;  but  their  good 
men,  who  had  votes,  kept  their  hands  in  their 
pockets  and  their  pipes  in  their  mouths,  and 
scowled  uncomfortably  over  the  hedges,  as  though 


A  GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  63 

instinct  told  them  to  touch  their  caps,  and  the 
Radical  political  agent  had  told  them  they  must 
do  nothing  so  foolish.  Our  local  agent,  with  a 
union-jack  in  his  button-hole,  received  us  thank- 
fully, for  the  gentleman  then  speaking  had  been 
trying  for  the  last  hour  to  hold  the  meeting  to- 
gether until  we  came,  and  was  getting  more 
hoarse  as  the  crowd  grew  more  noisy,  and  it  had 
become  a  necessity  of  night  or  Bliicher.  Then 
the  local  agent,  who  is  always  a  young  man  with 
smooth  hair  and  strong  lungs,  suddenly  began  to 
jump  up  and  down  and  to  cheer  frantically,  as 
though  he  had  just  discovered  the  Candidate's 
arrival,  and  the  meeting  turned  to  look,  and  the 
speaker  said,  "Thank  Heaven  !"  and  dropped  into 
his  chair,  breathing  heavily.  The  Candidate's 
speech  was  a  little  longer  this  time,  because  of 
doubtful  spirits  in  the  audience  who  had  to  be 
converted,  and  on  account  of  their  numerous  in- 
terruptions. It  struck  me  as  a  very  noisy  meet- 
ing, and  I  waited  with  some  impatience  to  see  the 
noisiest  one  put  out  as  an  example  and  a  warning 
to  the  others ;  but  no  one  was  at  all  put  out,  not 
even  the  Candidate.  That  was  my  first  experi- 
ence of  a  mixed  political  meeting  in  England, 
and  of  the  great  and  most  curious  institution  of 
"  heckling."  Later  in  the  campaign  I  was  not  so 
anxious  to  see  the  noisiest  one  put  out  as  to  as- 
certain at  just  which  point  in  the  proceedings  it 
would  be  wisest  for  us  to  get  out  ourselves. 


64  OUR   ENGLISH    COUSINS- 

The  next  speaking-place  was  one  of  the  largest 
in  the  division.  It  was  strongly  Radical.  This 
was  the  place  where  the  Candidate  had  promised 
me  we  should  have  our  heads  broken. 

If  you  have  ever  attended  a  political  meeting 
at  home  you  will  better  appreciate  how  strange 
to  an  American  must  be  a  political  meeting  in 
England.  The  object  of  a  meeting  with  us  is  to 
give  the  candidate  and  some  of  his  political 
friends  an  opportunity  of  telling  all  of  those  who 
care  to  come  and  listen  what  his  party  proposes 
to  do,  what  he  proposes  to  do  if  he  is  elected, 
and  to  point  out  with  damning  frankness  the  cor- 
rupt and  evil  doings  of  the  other  party.  Those 
who  do  not  care  to  hear  this  remain  away  ;  those 
who  do,  interrupt  the  proceedings  only  by  beg- 
ging the  speaker  to  "  let  'em  have  it,"  referring 
by  this,  of  course,  to  the  corrupt  and  evil  other 
party.  Any  further  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
members  of  the  audience  to  make  antiphonal 
chorus  of  the  meeting  results  in  their  being 
ejected  forcibly  and  without  sympathy  or  gloves. 
The  result  of  this  is  that  seldom  any  but  Republi- 
cans attend  a  Republican  meeting,  and  only  good 
Democrats  go  to  Democratic  meetings,  and  every 
one  departs  having  heard  what  he  already  knew, 
and  more  firmly  convinced  than  before,  in  default 
of  any  testimony  to  the  contrary,  that  his  candi- 
date and  his  party  are  the  right  ones.  And  he  in 
time  votes  accordingly  like  a  good  citizen. 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  05 

But  the  English  look  at  this  differently.  The 
Briton's  vote  is  a  very  precious  thing  to  him, 
and  he  wants  to  know  exactly  who  is  going  to 
get  that  vote,  and  why  he  thinks  he  should  get 
it.  So  he  goes  to  the  meeting  at  which  the  can- 
didate is  announced  to  speak  and  asks  him. 
This  is  called  "  heckling  " ;  it  is  a  Scotch  word, 
and  in  Scotland  is  carried  out  with  the  careful 
and  deliberate  consideration  which  marks  that 
people. 

The  Scotchman  who  invented  heckling  prob- 
ably looked  at  it  in  this  way.  This  man,  he  ar- 
gues, wishes  to  represent  my  interests,  he  wants 
my  vote:  "the  Scotch  are  no  a  wasteful  folk," 
and  I  shall  not  give  him  my  vote  until  I  am  con- 
vinced I  am  getting  the  best  possible  value  for 
it.  We  read  of  an  English  candidate  appealing 
to  his  constituents,  and  of  one  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish parties  appealing  to  the  country.  Our  can- 
didates are  not  placed  in  any  such  bemeaning 
position.  They  are  too  proud  to  appeal  to  their 
constituents.  The  bosses  give  us  our  candidates 
and  we  try  to  feel  thankful  and  vote  for  them, 
as  we  should,  and  there  are  no  questions  asked. 
But  the  unhappy  English  candidate  is  expected 
to  give  a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  in  him  to 
any  one  and  every  one  who  calls  upon  him  so 
to  do.  This  is  heckling.  Sometimes  the  privi- 
lege of  heckling  is  conducted  in  good  faith,  but 
more  frequently  it  is  not.  It  has  one  great  ad- 
5 


66  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

vantage,  it  teaches  the  unfortunate  candidate  to 
think  while  he  is  on  his  legs,  and  to  keep  his  wits 
and  his  temper. 

There  was  a  man  with  a  blue  necktie.  He  was 
a  most  unpleasant  gentleman,  and  he  rose  to  ask 
questions  at  irregular  moments  with  a  pertinac- 
ity of  purpose  and  a  confident  smile  which  no 
amount  of  howling  on  the  part  of  the  good  Con- 
servatives could  dismay. 

"  Mr.  -  — ,  sir,"  he  would  say,  "  I  'ave  a  ques- 
tion I  would  like  to  put  to  you,  sir.  Did  you, 
sir,  or  did  you  not,  vote  for  the  Impecunious 
School  -  masters  Bill  as  presented  on  July  2, 
1890?" 

Now  it  was  not  at  all  likely  that  any  of  the 
Radicals  present  had  ever  heard  of  the  bill  be- 
fore, or  cared  twopence  about  it  if  they  had,  but 
they  saw  the  fiendish  purpose  of  the  question, 
and  they  howled  accordingly,  a  triumphant,  mock- 
ing howl,  quite  long  and  loud  enough  to  drown 
any  possible  answer  in  case  the  Candidate  had 
one  to  make,  and  sufficiently  exasperating  to 
make  him  forget  it  if  he  had.  But  the  Candi- 
date would  smile  easily,  and  raise  his  hands  im- 
ploringly for  silence,  and  then  turn  his  head  over 
his  shoulder  with  a  quick  aside  to  his  political 
agent,  or  to  one  of  the  other  speakers,  and  whis- 
per, fiercely,  "Quick!  look  it  up  !  what  bill  does 
the  ass  mean?"  and  then  smile  encouragingly  on 
the  heckler,  while  the  political  agent  would  thumb 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  69 

over  a  Speaker's  Hand-book,  and  whisper  back, 
hidden  by  the  Candidate's  figure:  "Introduced 
by  Lord  Charing,  seconded  by  Paddington  ;  lost 
on  second  reading,  64  to  14.  You  voted  for  it. 
It  was  a  bill  to  subsidize  county  school-teachers." 
Then  the  Candidate,  who  had  probably  been  tak- 
ing tea  on  the  terrace  when  the  bill  was  intro- 
duced, and  who  had  voted  with  his  party  at  the 
division,  and  returned  in  time  to  say,  "Two 
lumps,  please,"  would  smile  cheerfully,  and  ask 
the  heckler  if  he  would  be  so  good  as  to  repeat 
his  question,  which  the  heckler  judged  was  a  sub- 
terfuge to  gain  time,  and  would  repeat  it  in  a 
more  triumphant  and  offensive  manner  than  be- 
fore. 

"  Impecunious  School-masters  Bill?  Oh  yes," 
the  Candidate  would  say.  "  Introduced  by  Lord 
Charing,  I  believe.  Oh  yes,  a  very  excellent  bill ; 
seconded,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  by  Mr.  Padding- 
ton,"  and  then,  turning  to  the  political  agent, 
"  Am  I  right  ?"  to  which  the  political  agent, 
after  a  moment's  consideration,  nods  a  decided 
assent.  "  I  voted  for  that  bill."  All  the  Con- 
servatives cheered,  and  the  gentleman  with  the 
blue  necktie  sat  down,  rather  red  in  the  face,  and 
scanning  the  notes,  with  which  the  Radical  polit- 
ical agent  who  had  sent  him  there  had  furnished 
him,  with  dawning  distrust. 

But  we  did  not  always  triumph.  Sometimes 
My  Candidate  would  sit  on  a  table,  patiently 


70  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

swinging  one  leg  and  rolling  and  consuming  cig- 
arettes for  a  half-hour  before  the  room  grew  suf- 
ficiently quiet  for  a  steam-roller  to  have  been 
heard  around  the  corner.  As  exhibitions  they 
were  the  most  unfair,  the  most  cruel,  and  the 
most  unmannerly  I  have  ever  witnessed,  and 
they  were  the  same  in  every  division  in  Eng- 
land. It  used  to  remind  me  of  a  thorough-bred 
horse  hitched  to  a  post,  with  all  the  dirty  little 
curs  in  the  village,  knowing  that  it  could  not 
reach  them,  snapping  and  snarling  at  his  heels. 

"  Gentlemen,"  the  Candidate  would  beg — 
"gentlemen,  do  you  call  this  fair  play?  Do  you 
call  yourselves  Englishmen  ?  Do  you—  Oh,  go 
to  the  devil !"  and  he  would  roll  another  cigar- 
ette and  sit  down  on  the  edge  of  the  table  and 
wait.  When  they  were  too  hoarse  to  yell  and 
boo  any  longer,  he  would  begin  his  speech  again, 
or  would  imitate  the  excellent  example  of  one  of 
our  Irish  speakers,  and  call  out  in  a  breathing- 
spell,  "  I  can't  talk  against  two  hundred  men, 
but  I  can  thrash  any  one  of  you  here  on  this 
platform."  They  always  rose  at  this,  not  because 
they  knew  he  could  or  could  not,  but  some  latent 
feeling  of  fairness  would  be  stirred  by  it,  and  then 
they  would  bid  him  have  his  say  and  "  speak  up." 

I  suppose  the  abuse  has  grown  to  the  limit  it 
has  reached  to-day  because  the  position  in  which 
the  candidate  puts  himself  when  he  appeals  to 
his  electors  is  the  only  one  when  he  is  a  petitioner, 


A  GENERAL    ELECTION    IN   ENGLAND  71 

and  not  a  superior  being  and  a  patron.  In  this 
country  a  candidate  never  dares  to  pretend  that 
he  is  better  than  any  one  else,  whether  he  has 
but  his  vote  or  is  the  President  of  his  country. 
And  so,  when  he  goes  forth  to  ask  for  votes,  his 
attitude  is  unchanged  ;  he  is  still,  as  he  has  al- 
ways been,  one  of  ourselves. 

But  you  can  see  how  different  it  must  be  in 
England.  For  months  or  years  the  candidate, 
especially  a  Conservative  candidate,  lives  and 
moves  in  another  atmosphere  from  that  which 
his  constituents  breathe.  He  subscribes  to  their 
societies  and  golf  and  football  clubs,  and  addresses 
them  from  the  head  of  the  table  at  dinners,  and 
condescends  to  play  cricket  with  them,  and  to 
give  them  a  pass  into  the  strangers'  gallery  to 
look  down  upon  him  with  his  hands  in  his  pock- 
ets, his  hat  cocked  over  his  eyes,  talking  famil- 
iarly to  a  cabinet  minister.  They  stop  trimming 
hedges  to  run  and  open  the  gate  when  he  rides 
to  the  meet,  or  hurry  from  the  shop  to  the  side- 
walk to  take  his  order  when  his  cart  stops  in 
front  of  the  door.  :. 

And  then  on  one  day  all  this  is  changed,  and 
their  chance  comes,  and  they  take  it.  Their  can- 
didate returns  to  them  heralded  by  posters,  and  a 
circular  letter  which  begs  a  renewal  of  that  confi- 
dence which  he  has  already  enjoyed,  hoping  he 
has  pleased  them  in  the  past,  and  promising  to 
be  good,  and  even  better,  in  the  future,  if  they 


72  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

will  only  send  him  back  to  that  fine  club  in 
Westminster  again.  It  is  all  very  courteous  and 
friendly  and  dignified ;  but  the  electors,  like  Mr. 
Kipling's  soldiers,  know  they  are  "  no  thin  red 
line  of  heroes,"  and  that  telling  them  they  are 
intelligent  and  free  electors  is  not  going  to  alter 
the  fact  that  for  years  or  months  they  have  been 
touching  their  hats,  and  that  it  is  now  their  turn, 
and  that  the  candidate  is  taking  his  hat  off  to 
them. 

You  can  hardly  blame  them.  They  are  not 
intelligent  enough  to  act  as  equals  in  the  first 
place,  nor  independent  enough  to  be  magnani- 
mous at  the  last.  "  Now,  my  good  man,"  the 
Candidate  would  say,  "  why  do  you  make  so 
much  noise?  What  have  you  got  against  me?" 
And  the  good  man  would  squirm  and  scowl  and 
say,  finally,  "Ah,  you're  a  gentleman,  and  we  uns" 
ain't  goin'  to  have  no  more  gentlemen  a-keepin' 
us  down  ;"  and  then  he  would  manifest  his  new- 
born freedom  by  yelling  "boo ".for  half  an  hour 
while  the  gentleman  bit  his  lip  and  raised  his 
hand  wearily  for  silence.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  every  meeting  was  like  this,  but  half  of  them 
were.  And  it  is  only  fair  to  say,  also,  that  it  was 
not  always  the  voters  who  made  the  most  noise. 
Half-grown  boys  or  the  navvies  from  the  near 
railroad  works,  with  no  other  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceedings than  the  delight  they  took  in  annoying 
the  swell,  often  made  the  greater  part  of  the  riot. 


'TOLD  YOU  SADLY,  AS  HE  FIXED  YOUR  BATH 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  75 

But  heckling  is,  for  all  that,  the  blot  on  the  Eng- 
lish election.  It  shows  a  cruel,  brutal  love  of 
torturing  something,  even  if  that  thing  is  a  man. 
It  is  the  bull-baiting  of  the  present  day. 

As  heckling  is  the  thing  the  American  can't  un- 
derstand or  admire,  so  the  Corrupt  Practices  Act 
and  its  workings  is  the  feature  of  an  English  elec- 
tion which  appeals  to  him  as  its  greatest  triumph 
and  glory.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  bribery, 
as  we  know  it,  is  unknown  in  England.  The  laws 
are  against  it,  the  sentiment  of  the  people  is 
against  it,  and  the  condition  of  things  at  the 
present  time  is  against  it.  The  Corrupt  Prac- 
tices Act  places  the  conduct  of  an  election  in 
the  hands  of  one  person,  the  political  agent,  who 
is  made  responsible  for,  and  who  must  furnish  an 
itemized  account  for,  every  penny  spent  during 
the  campaign.  Every  voter  of  the  opposition  is 
virtually  an  auditor  of  that  account,  and  proof  of 
corruption  in  the  slightest  degree,  if  corruption 
has  degrees,  not  only  sends  the  political  agent  to 
jail,  but  loses  the  candidate  his  election. 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  after  this 
general  election  Mr.  Frank  C.  James,  the  Con- 
servative who  was  elected  in  Walsall,  was  de- 
prived of  his  seat  by  the  courts  because  he  pro- 
vided hat-cards  or  favors  for  his  adherents.  That 
is,  if  an  English  candidate  should  supply  his 
friends  with  the  buttons  which  are  worn  over 
here  by  the  adherents  of  different  men  and  par- 


76  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

ties  he  would  be  looked  upon  as  a  corrupt  and 
bribe-giving  miscreant,  and  lose  his  chance  of  sit- 
ting in  the  Lower  House.  Mr.  Nathaniel  George 
Clayton  also  lost  his  seat ;  his  offence  consisting 
in  his  having  given  a  check  to  a  Conservative, 
who  used  the  money  to  organize  a  picnic.  This 
was  held  by  the  court  to  come  within  the  pro- 
visions of  the  act  prohibiting  treating.  It  is  of 
no  use  to  say  to  this  that  we  also  have  laws  to 
punish  corruption.  We  have,  and  every  one 
knows  how  seldom  they  are  enforced,  and  how 
little  public  sentiment  there  is  back  of  them  to 
put  them  in  motion. 

In  England  there  is  as  little  possible  reward 
for  services  rendered  after  the  election  as  there 
is  actual  bribery  for  services  rendered  before  the 
election.  Indeed,  the  most  remarkable  thing  to 
me  about  the  English  elections  was  the  number 
of  women  and  men  who  worked  for  the  different 
candidates  with  no  other  incentive  than  the  de- 
sire to  see  their  man  and  their  party  win.  The 
shopkeepers,  after  a  long  day  behind  the  coun- 
ter, worked  in  the  committee-rooms  until  two  in 
the  morning,  folding  and  mailing  circulars  and 
other  campaign  matter.  The  women  of  the  vil- 
lage, led  by  the  rector's  wife,  directed  forty-five 
thousand  envelopes  in  one  week ;  and  the  ladies 
from  the  Castle  rose  early  and  canvassed  the 
town  in  rain  and  storm  to  fill  in  the  little  slips  with 
which  the  political  agent  had  furnished  them, 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  77 

and  which  they  forwarded  to  him  at  headquar- 
ters before  they  went  to  sleep  at  night.  Gentle- 
men of  many  clubs  deserted  these  clubs  to  travel 
in  open  dog-carts  over  rough  roads  to  speak  at 
noisy,  heated  meetings,  to  sleep  in  strange  inns, 
and  to  eat  when  and  where  they  might.  No  fly- 
by-night  theatrical  company  or  travelling  tinker 
works  harder  or  suffers  more  privations  than  does 
the  political  speaker  at  an  English  election.  And 
for  what?  Not  to  get  office,  because  the  Mem- 
ber of  Parliament  has  none  to  give.  Not  to  gain 
notoriety,  for  his  speeches  are  not  reported ;  and 
certainly  not  to  make  himself  popular,  for  he  is 
lucky  if  he  gets  out  of  town  with  his  carriage 
windows  and  his  head  unbroken.  He  is  not  a 
very  bright  speaker,  the  average  English  gentle- 
man. He  hems  and  hesitates,  and  deals  largely 
in  figures  which  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
were  he  present,  might  be  able  to  contradict,  but 
which  the  agricultural  laborer  imbibes  unques- 
tioningly.  But  he  deserves  the  greatest  possible 
honor  for  the  trouble  he  takes  and  for  the  spirit 
which  leads  him  to  take  that  trouble,  and  which 
shames  the  busy  American  gentleman  who  thinks 
he  has  served  his  country  well  and  sufficiently  if 
he  remembers  to  register  and  who  then  pairs  off 
with  some  one  else  that  they  may  both  spend 
Election  Day  in  the  country.  The  gentlemen 
who  spoke  for  My  Candidate  came  from  all  over 
Great  Britain.  Half  of  them  were  his  personal 


78  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

friends,  and  as  many  more  utter  strangers,  who 
spoke  for  him  because  the  Central  Committee 
had  asked  them  so  to  do,  and  who  on  the  next 
morning  hurried  away  to  speak  for  some  one  else. 

They  were  as  various  as  the  days  of  the  year, 
and  as  entertaining.  They  came  at  all  hours,  un- 
heralded and  unknown,  some  to  remain  at  the 
House  only  overnight,  to  appear  for  a  brief  half- 
hour  in  the  smoking-room,  and  to  depart  before 
we  came  down  for  breakfast,  and  others  to  re- 
main three  or  four  days,  and  to  furnish  the  House 
party  with  matter  for  infinite  speculation  and  de- 
light. 

The  House  party  added  an  element  to  the 
campaign  which  was  at  least  diverting.  Its  mem- 
bers were  the  drones  in  the  hive.  Some  of  them 
could  not  speak  because  they  were  members  of 
the  House  of  Peers,  or  because  if  they  had  spoken 
they  would  have  gained  more  votes  for  the  other 
side  than  the  Candidate  could  afford  to  lose,  or 
because  they  were  Americans.  But  they  lifted 
the  strain  of  the  canvass  in  different  ways,  and 
served  to  turn  the  Candidate's  thoughts  to  light- 
er things,  and  to  give  him  some  one  near  at  hand 
to  abuse.  It  made  an  interesting  picture  at  night, 
after  the  women  had  taken  their  candlesticks  and 
the  men  had  foregathered  in  the  billiard-room,  the 
non-speakers  of  the  House  party  in  their  smok- 
ing-jackets  amused  or  politely  cynical,  and  plan- 
ning tennis  matches  for  the  morrow,  and  the 


'THE  WOMEN  RAN  INTO  THE  STREET" 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  8 1 

speakers  enthusiastic  and  self-important,  covered 
with  flecks  of  flying  mud,  and  very  hoarse,  and 
all  trying  to  tell  at  the  same  time  of  the  success 
with  which  their  oratory  had  been  received  by 
the  intelligent  electors  of  Pigley-on- Thames,  or 
Little  Market  Leeping,  or  Pippingham  Corner. 

"  You  can't  make  too  much  of  that,"  the  Lon- 
don barrister  would  say,  rocking  from  one  foot  to 
the  other  in  front  of  the  fireplace.  "  That's  an 
argument  which  I  use  in  every  speech  I  make. 
That  appeals  to  their  pockets.  What  does  the 
agricultural  laborer  know  of  home-rule,  or  care — 

"  Ah,  I  think  you're  wrong  there,"  the  dis- 
senting clergyman  from  Cork  would  interrupt. 
"Home -rule  is  the  question.  Now  my  expe- 
rience is  that  they'll  always  listen  to  that.  I 
find—" 

"  Well,  they  wouldn't  listen  to  me,"  the  Ox- 
ford graduate  breaks  in,  gloomily.  "  They  jolly 
well  hooted  me." 

"  Is  that  all  ?"  laughs  the  Central  Committee 
man,  easily.  "  My  dear  boy,  wait  till  you  speak 
at  Eppingham  Commons.  They  chased  me  for 
a  mile." 

And  so  it  would  go  on,  with  the  Candidate  sit- 
ting in  the  middle,  sipping  cold  Scotch,  and  nod- 
ding his  head  to  each  in  turn,  and  wishing  they 
were  all  in  bed,  while  the  drones  banged  the  bill- 
iard balls  about  and  made  mental  notes  for  the 
amusement  of  the  women-folk  in  the  morning. 
6 


82  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

The  court-yard  was  always  filled  with  carts  or 
traps  or  flies  from  the  inn,  or  the  bicycles  of  the 
telegraph  messengers,  and  the  table  below-stairs 
was  always  set  for  these  worthy  people,  and  the 
table  up-stairs  always  spread  with  what  was  break- 
fast for  one  man,  and  luncheon  or  dinner  for  an- 
other, or  all  three  for  the  Candidate.  They  were 
most  amusing,  these  elongated  breakfasts,  where 
a  speaker  would  stop,  with  his  plate  in  his  hand, 
between  the  sideboard  and  the  table  to  repeat  a 
particularly  fine  flight  of  the  night  before,  and 
the  butler  would  wait  impassively  until  the  gen- 
tleman who  had  asked  for  more  claret-cup  had 
finished  using  his  glasses  to  show  the  position  of 
the  Unionist  stronghold  in  Ireland.  It  was  poli- 
tics all  day  and  long  into  the  night,  from  the  ear- 
ly morning,  when  the  man  who  valeted  you  told 
you  sadly,  as  he  fixed  your  bath,  that  "  we  "  had 
lost  three  seats  since  the  night  before,  until  night- 
fall, when  the  last  tired  speaker  came  apologeti- 
cally in  from  the  darkness  and  assured  us  that  he 
had  saved  the  sixty  votes  of  Midland  Tooting  by 
the  greatest  oratorical  effort  of  his  life. 

The  part  the  women  play  in  an  English  elec- 
tion is  one  of  the  things  which  no  American  can 
accept  as  an  improvement  over  our  own  methods. 
It  may  either  amuse  him  or  shock  him,  but  he 
would  not  care  to  see  it  adopted  at  home.  The 
canvassing  in  the  country  from  cottage  to  cot- 
tage he  can  understand ;  that  seems  possible 


A    GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  83 

enough.  It  takes  the  form  of  a  polite  visit  to 
the  tenants,  and  the  real  object  is  cloaked  with 
a  few  vague  inquiries  about  the  health  of  the 
children  or  the  condition  of  the  crops,  and  the 
tract -like  distribution  of  campaign  documents. 
But  in  town  it  is  different.  The  invasion  of 
bachelor  apartments  by  young  Primrose  Dames 
is  embarrassing  and  un-nice,  and  is  the  sort  of 
thing  we  would  not  allow  our  sisters  to  do ;  and 
the  house-to-house  canvass  in  the  alleys  of  White- 
chapel  or  among  the  savages  of  Lambeth,  which 
results  in  insult  and  personal  abuse,  is,  to  our  way 
of  thinking,  a  simple  impossibility.  The  English, 
as  a  rule,  think  we  allow  our  women  to  do  pretty 
much  as  they  please,  and  it  is  true  that  they  do 
in  many  things  enjoy  more  freedom  than  their 
British  cousins,  but  the  men  in  our  country  are 
not  so  anxious  to  get  into  office,  greedy  as  they 
are  after  it,  as  to  allow  their  wives,  in  order  to 
attain  that  end,  to  be  even  subject  to  annoyance, 
certainly  not  to  be  stoned  and  hustled  off  their 
feet  or  splattered  with  the  mud  of  the  Mile-End 
Road.  Any  one  in  England  who  followed  the 
election  last  year  knows  to  the  wife  of  which 
distinguished  candidate  and  to  the  daughters  of 
which  cabinet  minister  I  refer. 

I  have  seen  women  of  the  best  class  struck  by 
stones  and  eggs  and  dead  fish,  and  the  game  did 
not  seem  to  me  to  be  worth  the  candle.  I  con- 
fess that  at  the  time  I  was  so  intent  in  admiring 


84  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

their  pluck  that  it  appeared  to  me  as  rather  fine 
than  otherwise,  but  from  this  calmer  distance  I 
can  see  nothing  in  the  active  work  of  the  English 
woman  in  politics  which  justifies  the  risks  she  vol- 
untarily runs  of  insult  and  indignity  and  bodily 
injury.  A  seat  in  the  House  would  hardly  repay 
a  candidate  for  the  loss  of  one  of  his  wife's  eyes, 
or  of  all  of  his  sister's  front  teeth,  and  though 
that  is  putting  it  brutally,  it  is  putting  it  fairly. 

It  would  not  be  fair,  however,  if  I  left  the  idea 
in  the  reader's  mind  that  the  women  go  into  this 
work  unwillingly ;  on  the  contrary,  they  delight 
in  it,  and  some  of  them  are  as  clever  at  it  as  the 
men,  and  go  to  as  great  lengths,  from  Mrs.  Lang- 
try,  who  plastered  her  house  from  pavement  to 
roof  with  red  and  white  posters  for  the  Conserv- 
ative candidate,  to  the  Duchesses  who  sat  at  the 
side  of  the  member  for  Westminster  and  regret- 
ted that  it  threatened  to  be  an  orderly  meeting. 
It  is  also  only  fair  to  add  that  many  of  the  most 
prominent  Englishmen  in  politics  are  as  much 
opposed  to  what  they  call  the  interference  of 
women  in  matters  political  as  they  are  to  bribery 
and  corruption,  and  regard  both  elements  of  an 
electoral  campaign  with  as  pronounced  disfavor. 
The  reply  which  the  present  President  of  the 
United  States  made  to  those  enthusiastic  and  no 
doubt  well-meaning  women  who  wished  to  form 
leagues  and  name  them  after  his  wife,  illustrates 
the  spirit  with  which  the  interference  of  women 


"THE  LADIES  IN  THE  WINDOWS  OF  THE  INN 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  87 

in  politics  is  regarded  in  this  country.  But  then 
it  is  a  new  thing  with  us,  and  it  is  only  right  to 
remember  that  from  the  days  of  the  Duchess  of 
Devonshire's  sentimental  canvass  to  the  present, 
English  women  have  taken  a  part  in  general  elec- 
tions ;  that  there  is  a  precedent  for  it ;  and  when 
you  have  said  that  of  anything  English,  you 
have  justified  it  for  all  time  to  come.  It  is, 
after  all,  like  the  tariff,  a  "  local  issue,"  and  the 
young  American  girl  who  would  not  think  it 
proper  to  address  men  from  a  platform  and  give 
them  a  chance  to  throw  things  at  her  must  re- 
member that  the  English  girl  would  not  give  the 
man  she  knew  a  cup  of  tea  in  the  afternoon  un- 
less her  mother  were  in  the  room  to  take  care  of 
her.  And  I  am  sure  the  women  in  My  Candi- 
date's campaign  almost  persuaded  me  that  they, 
as  the  political  agent  declared,  did  more  than 
himself  to  win  the  election.  They  did  this  by 
simply  being  present  on  the  platforms,  by  wear- 
ing our  colors,  or  by  saying  a  kind  word  here  or 
giving  a  nod  of  the  head  there,  and  by  being 
cheerfully  confident  when  things  looked  gloomy, 
or  gravely  concerned  when  the  Candidate  was 
willing  to  consider  the  victory  already  assured. 
As  the  young  Boston  Democrat  who  was  of  the 
House  party  used  to  say  to  me,  confidentially, 
"  If  we  had  that  girl  to  help  us  in  America,  I'd 
be  willing  to  run  for  Governor  of  Texas  on  the 
Republican  ticket." 


88  OUR  ENGLISH    COUSINS 

The  canvass  lasted  two  weeks.  They  were 
two  weeks  of  moonlight  rides  at  night  from  one 
village  to  another,  of  special  trains  by  day,  and 
speeches  in  clubs,  at  cross-roads,  in  the  market- 
places, and  in  the  crowded,  noisy  school-rooms, 
and  they  ended  with  a  long  drive,  on  the  day 
before  the  poll,  of  thirty  miles  through  all  the 
villages.  As  we  were  good  Conservatives  and 
people  of  high  degree,  of  whom  such  things  were 
expected,  we  made  these  thirty  mijes  behind  four 
white  horses,  with  postilions  in  red  jackets  and 
green  velvet  caps,  and  with  long  cracking  whips. 
Jt  made  me  look  back  involuntarily  for  the  pur- 
suing parent,  or  ahead  for  the  gentleman  in  the 
gray  caped  coat  and  cocked  hat  who  should  have 
waited  for  us  at  a  cross-road  behind  pistols  and 
a  black  mask,  The  Radical  Candidate  made  the 
same  final  trip  over  the  same  route  in  a  dog-cart, 
driving  tandem,  with  his  sister  beside  him  and  a 
groom  at  the  back.  We  met  at  the  principal 
town  on  the  road,  and  he  pulled  up  smartly,  and 
he  and  our  Candidate  leaned  over  and  shook 
hands,  and  the  sisters  of  the  rival  candidates 
smiled  sweetly  at  one  another,  and  said,  "  What 
a  pity  it  is  such  a  rainy  day!"  and  we  men  raised 
our  hats  stiffly  and  proudly,  and  the  excited  pop- 
ulace wept  tears  of  joy.  It  was  an  historical  mo- 
ment, and  gained  both  Candidates  many  votes. 
We  left  our  starting-point  in  a  drizzling  rain, 
with  the  sisters  of  the  Candidate  in  beautiful  red 


A  GENERAL   ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  89 

silk  capes,  and  the  Candidate  in  the  open  car- 
riage, and  with  two  of  the  "hangers-on,"  as  we 
aliens  from  America  or  London  were  called,  on 
the  box.  And  we  all  bowed  and  smiled  for  thirty 
miles.  The  two  on  the  box  bowed  to  the  pro- 
spective voters  back  in  the  fields  behind  the 
hedges,  and  we  in  the  carriage  to  those  at  the 
cottage  doors,  and  so  every  one  was  included, 
and  the  feelings  of  no  possible  voter  were  inten- 
tionally hurt.  Sometimes  they  appreciated  the 
honor  done  them  and  sometimes  they  did  not. 

At  one  place  it  was  all  blue,  blue  being  the 
Radical  color  in  that  division,  and  the  streets 
looked  like  the  grand-stand  at  the  Polo  Grounds 
when  Yale  has  scored.  They  .greeted  us  in  this 
village  with  curses  and  groans,  and  the  women 
ran  into  the  street  beating  tin  cans  and  trays 
to  frighten  the  horses,  and  made  unladylike 
faces  and  used  unladylike  language.  We  thought 
it  a  most  dirty  and  unpicturesque  village,  and 
the  postilions  put  their  heads  down  and  lashed 
the  horses  into  a  gallop.  But  at  the  next  place 
and  the  next  they  had  luncheons  spread  for 
us,  and  everything  was  red  and  all  the  win- 
dows were  hung  with  the  Candidate's  portrait, 
and  nice  old  ladies  with  red  bows  in  their  lace 
caps  bowed  to  us  from  the  front  windows,  and 
the  maids  waved  flags  from  the  doors,  and  the 
constituents  raced  alongside  in  the  mud  and 
made  us  feel  very  important  indeed.  The  Can- 


90  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

didate  never  properly  appreciated  the  luncheons. 
He  did  not  consider  them  important.  But  my 
brother  and  the  other  "  hanger-on,"  who  was  a 
very  smart  youth  in  a  long-tailed  coaching-coat 
and  a  winning  smile,  used  to  help  the  cause 
along  wonderfully.  "  You're  very  good,"  the 
Candidate  would  protest  to  the  anxious  host, 
"  but  I  really  cannot  eat  anything  more.  I  have 
some  friends  outside,  though — "  Then  he  would 
call  down  the  hangers-on  from  the  box-seat  as 
substitutes,  and  they  would  set  cheerfully  to  work 
again,  as  though  the  effects  of  the  luncheon  of 
the  last  village  had  been  washed  away  in  the 
rain. 

"  I  assure  you,  sir,"  the  political  agent  would 
say,  pounding  the  table,  "  that  the  meeting  last 
night  was  the  greatest — 

"  I  say,"  the  one  in  the  coaching  -  coat  would 
interrupt,  earnestly,  "  would  you  kindly  pass  the 
pigeon-pie?  Thank  you." 

We  had  three  luncheons  before  we  reached 

B ,  where  we  stopped  two  hours  to  rest  the 

horses.  B was  the  place  where  the  votes  were 

to  be  counted  the  next  day,  and  strongly  Radi- 
cal. We  found  it  very  stupid  waiting  about  after 
the  exciting  progress  of  the  morning,  while  the 
horses  were  being  baited,  and  so  we  wrote  out 
a  placard  in  the  inn  announcing  the  loss  to 
Mr.  Gladstone  of  four  thousand  votes  in  Mid- 
lothian, and  put  it  up  outside.  I  regret  to  say 


"THE   MOB   SEIZED   THE   HANGER-ON 


A  GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  93 

that  this  placard,  when  viewed  from  a  distance, 
read  as  though  Mr.  Gladstone  had  lost  Midlo- 
thian. The  line  "  four  thousand  votes  at "  was 
there,  but  it  was  written  so  very  small  that  no 
one  could  make  it  out  unless  he  got  within  a  few 
feet  of  it,  which  some  good  Conservatives  pre- 
vented by  standing  in  front  of  it.  But  the  Radi- 
cals reached  it  at  last  and  tore  it  down,  and  while 
we  remonstrated  the  hanger-on  in  the  coaching- 
coat  went  into  the  inn  to  prepare  another  bulle- 
tin. The  remonstrances  drew  the  crowd  around 
us,  and  the  crowd  began  to  hustle,  which  is  not 
what  we  mean  in  America  when  we  use  that 
word,  but  is  putting  your  shoulder  against  a  man 
and  shoving  him.  About  three  hundred  Radicals 
began  to  do  this,  and  the  Candidate  broadehed 
his  shoulders  and  braced  himself,  and  the  Con- 
servative workers  plunged  into  the  mob  to  help, 
and  everybody  began  to  sway  and  push,  and  the 
ladies  in  the  windows  of.  the  inn  became  anxious. 
The  hanger-on  in  the  meanwhile  had  prepared 
his  duplicate  placard,  and  two  Conservatives 
helped  him  up  on  their  shoulders  that  he  might 
nail  it  high  above  the  reach  of  the  mob.  But  the 
mob  seized  the  hanger-on  by  the  tails  of  his  long 
coaching -coat,  and  his  remonstrances  and  the 
figure  he  made  with  the  placard  in  one  hand  and 
a  hammer  in  the  other,  and  with  his  mouth  full 
of  tacks,  as  he  tried  to  balance  himself  on  the 
shoulders  of  the  two  Conservatives  and  snatch 


94  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

his  coat-tails  from  the  wicked  Radicals,  impress- 
ed me  very  much,  though  at  the  time  I  was 
otherwise  engaged.  Stones  and  sticks  were  fly- 
ing, and  fish  that  were  never  meant  to  fly,  and 
the  local  inspector  of  police  was  begging  the 
Candidate  to  go  inside  arid  so  stop  the  riot,  and 
the  youngest  of  both  sides  were  hammering  each 
other  right  and  left.  They  continued  to  throw 
things,  the  women  throwing  more  spitefully  than 
the  men,  but  not  aiming  so  well,  and  most  of  our 
party  were  hit,  so  that  during  the  rest  of  our 
drive  the  carriage  had  a  strange  odor  of  a  fish- 
market. 

There  were  no  speeches  that  night.  We  all 
sat  around  the  house  and  tried  to  play  cards  or 
listen  to  the  piano,  and  talked  of  everything  but 
the  election  on  the  morrow.  The  day  of  the  poll 
rose  clear  and  calm,  but  the  announcement  in 
the  papers  of  the  morning  that  the  Conservatives 
had  lost  fifteen  seats  on  the  day  previous  did  not 
send  us  to  B —  -  rejoicing. 

They  surround  the  counting  of  votes  in  Eng- 
land with  much  dignity  and  a  proper  degree  of 
mystery.  The  votes  came  into  town  locked  up 
in  big  black  tin  boxes,  carried  between  two  con- 
stables of  the  different  villages  in  the  division, 
and  the  boxes  were  piled  in  great  heaps  in  the 
town-hall.  Then  those  who  were  to  be  present 
went  before  a  magistrate  and  swore  themselves 
to  secrecy  as  to  what  they  were  about  to  see. 


A   GENERAL   ELECTION    IN   ENGLAND  95 

About  one  hundred  people  took  this  oath,  eighty 
of  whom  were  the  young  men  who  were  to  do 
the  counting  and  the  officials,  and  the  remainder 
were  a  half-dozen  friends  of  each  of  the  candi- 
dates. 

What  I  saw,  which  I  am  sure  my  oath  of  se- 
crecy will  allow  me  to  tell,  was  a  long,  bare  room, 
with  a  dozen  tables  in  the  centre  shut  in  by  a 
railing.  Inside  of  this  railing  the  young  men 
unfolded  and  counted  out  the  votes  and  kept 
tally.  Outside  the  railing  hung  the  interested 
ones  of  both  sides — the  friends,  the  late  speak- 
ers, and  the  sisters  of  the  rival  Candidates.  Some- 
times the  votes  at  one  table  would  all  run  one 
way,  and  if  that  was  not  our  way  we  would  crowd 
along  the  railing  to  a  table  where  things  were 
progressing  more  cheerfully.  At  each  table  there 
were  little  books  with  each  page  marked  to  hold 
the  record  of  twenty-five  votes,  and  so  by  multi- 
plying the  number  of  the  page  by  twenty-five, 
and  adding  the  result  to  the  results  obtained  in 
a  similar  way  at  the  other  tables,  one  could  make 
a  rough  guess  at  how  things  were  going.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  things  went  entirely  too  evenly. 
For  one  hour,  and  it  seemed  much  longer  than 
that,  we  hovered  over  those  rails  like  gamblers 
over  a  roulette-table,  or  ran  to  a  corner  to  com- 
pare calculations  with  some  one  else,  the  satis- 
faction of  such  comparisons  being  sadly  marred 
by  the  fact  that  the  Radicals  were  returning 


g6  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

from  another  corner  with  cheerful  countenances. 
Some  one's  arithmetic  was  most  evidently  in  the 
wrong. 

It  was  a  scene  quite  different  from  anything  of 
the  sort  in  this  country.  We  receive  the  returns 
here  in  the  seclusion  of  a  private  room  by  wire, 
and  the  hated  other  party  can  neither  hear  us 
swear  nor  rejoice ;  but  at  B —  -  we  had  to  con- 
trol our  satisfaction  when  things  were  coming 
our  way  out  of  deference  to  our  rival's  presence, 
and  we  dared  not  show  our  despair  for  the  same 
reason.  The  sisters  of  the  candidates  smiled 
bravely  and  kept  out  of  each  other's  company ; 
and  the  voices  of  the  tellers  as  they  called  the 
names  of  the  candidates  monotonously  from  the 
twelve  tables,  and  the  shuffling  of  the  hurrying 
feet  around  the  rail,  were  all  that  broke  the  si- 
lence of  the  big  room.  Outside,  beneath  the 
windows,  the  market-place  was  packed  with  a 
great  mob  of  anxious  people,  who  were  almost 
as  silent  as  those  inside. 

It  was  noon  before  the  twisted  pieces  of  paper 
had  sunk  from  high  white  piles  to  a  few  scattered 
leaves  on  the  twelve  tables.  And  then  one  no- 
ticed a  drawing  away  of  the  Radicals  from  one 
another,  and  an  equally  marked  gathering  to- 
gether of  the  Conservatives,  and  one  heard  little 
gasps  of  doubt  and  hope  and  the  louder  swagger- 
ing tones  of  congratulation. 

The  Mayor  of  B —  -  rose  at  last  and  held  the 


THEY   RAISED   THE  CANDIDATE  UP " 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  99 

returns  in  his  hand,  and  raised  his  eyes  from  them 
to  smile  slightly  towards  My  Candidate.  He  had 
no  business  to  do  that,  but  he  was  only  human. 
And  then,  while  he  pushed  his  way  towards  the 
window  to  officially  announce  the  result  of  the 
poll  to  the  waiting  mob,  we  executed  dance  steps, 
or  wrung  the  Candidate's  hand,  or  punched  each 
other  in  the  side,  or  tried  to  look  superior  and  as 
though  we  had  never  doubted  the  result  from  the 
first.  But  the  Radical  candidate's  sister,  who  had 
driven  at  his  side  over  so  many  rainy  miles  and 
sat  through  so  many  weary,  anxious  meetings, 
made  a  straight  line  for  our  Candidate's  sister, 
and  held  out  her  hand,  and  of  the  two  I  think  she 
was  the  least  embarrassed. 

"  My  brother  is  something  of  a  philosopher," 
she  said,  bravely  ;  "  he  will  take  it  well."  I  was 
very  glad  we  had  defeated  the  Radical  candi- 
date, but  I  wished  he  had  left  his  relatives  at 
home. 

And  then  we  were  rushed  out  into  the  street, 
but  not  into  such  an  unfriendly  mob  as  that  of 
the  day  before.  It  was  all  red  now,  and  they  were 
quite  crazy.  They  raised  the  Candidate  up  and 
carried  him  on  their  shoulders  to  the  stone  well 
in  the  market-place,  where  he  made  a  speech 
which  no  one  heard  save  the  reporter,  who  had 
crawled  between  his  legs,  because  we  all  yelled 
so ;  and  then  we  had  a  luncheon  at  the  inn,  and 
everybody  drank  everybody's  health,  and  the 


100  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

Candidate  went  to  the  window  every  other  min- 
ute to  show  himself  to  the  howling  crowd  and  to 
bow.  We  had  meant  to  return  by  rail,  but  that 
was  much  too  insipid  after  such  a  victory ;  and 
the  red  postilions  appeared  suddenly,  and  the  four 
white  horses,  just  as  the  fairy  coach  did  for  Cin- 
derella, and  fourteen  other  coaches  and  dog-carts 
and  drags  fell  into  line  behind,  and  we  left  B — 
at  a  gallop,  all  standing  up  and  cheering  and  wav- 
ing our  flags  or  hats,  and  drunk  with  pleasure  and 
success. 

They  telegraphed  on  ahead  that  the  successful 
Candidate  was  coming,  and  at  each  village  the 
people  met  us,  and  unhitched  the  horses,  and 
dragged  the  Candidate's  carriage  through  the 
streets,  and  all  the  people  came  to  the  doors 
and  hedges  and  cheered  too.  And  at  every  little 
thatched  cottage  the  good  Conservatives  ran  into 
the  road  and  danced  up  and  down,  and  at  all  the 
big  estates  the  house  -  servants  and  the  keepers 
and  the  men  from  the  stables  were  gathered  to 
welcome  us,  just  as  though  they  had  scented  vic- 
tory from  afar ;  and  I  regret  to  say  that  we  stole 
most  of  their  flags  as  we  galloped  by,  and  deco- 
rated the  fourteen  carriages,  so  that  it  looked  like 
a  trooping  of  the  colors  as  the  cavalcade  of  union- 
jacks  went  rocking  and  rising  and  falling  over  the 
hills. 

It  was  a  grand  triumphal  march  of  twenty 
miles,  and  the  driver  beside  me  lashed  his  horses 


A   GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  103 

all  the  way  and  muttered  to  himself  without 
once  stopping,  "  Sich  goings  on  I  never  did  see. 
That  I  will  say ;  sich  goings  on  I  never  did  see." 
It  was  near  six  before  we  reached  the  big  town 
near  the  House,  and  the  people  met  us  three 
miles  out,  on  foot  and  on  bicycles  and  on  horse- 
back, and  dragged  the  coach  the  rest  of  the  way 
under  rows  and  rows  of  swinging  flags  and  be- 
tween lines  of  wildly  excited  people ;  and  the 
Member,  no  longer  a  Candidate,  made  a  speech 
at  the  Angel  Inn — the  fifteenth  that  day — and 
the  landlord  rubbed  his  hands,  and  said,  cheer- 
fully, "  Every  window  in  my  'ouse  will  be  broke 
this  night,"  which  he  accepted  as  a  compliment 
to  the  stanch  principles  of  his  inn,  which  has 
been  Conservative  since  the  night  Charles  II. 
slept  in  it.  And  then  we  hitched  up  again,  and 
rode  out  of  the  noisy  town  and  through  the 
quiet  lanes  on  to  the  House,  more  soberly  now, 
for  we  were  conscious  of  how  much  victory 
meant  there. 

The  House  stands  at  the  end  of  an  avenue  of 
elms  a  mile  long,  and  the  lodge -keeper  had  the 
great  iron  gates  open  in  readiness  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life,  and  we  raced  through.  It  was 
just  six,  and  the  sun  was  going  down  behind  the 
House  and  the  great  elms,  and  the  park  lay  half 
in  shadow  and  half  in  twilight,  and  as  we  came 
swiftly  up  the  homestretch  we  came  so  soberly 
that  the  deer  did  not  run  away,  but  merely  raised 


104  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

their  heads  to  look.  That  door  of  the  House 
which  opens  on  the  mile  of  elms  is  one  seldom 
used ;  it  was  opened  once  long  ago  for  William 
III.,  and  once  again  more  lately  for  the  young 
prince  who  died,  and  again  that  day  for  the 
Member.  On  the  lawn  in  front  of  it  all  the  ten- 
ants stood  in  their  best  clothes,  with  red  wherever 
they  could  put  it ;  and  on  the  steps  were  the  la- 
dies from  the  other  houses  about,  and  the  officers 
who  had  ridden  over  from  the  camp,  and  back  of 
them  all  the  servants  in  their  best  livery  and  pow- 
dered hair. 

And  in  the  centre,  standing  very  tall  and  quite 
alone,  with  a  red  silk  cloak  falling  from  her  shoul- 
ders to  the  stone  flagging,  was  the  Lady  of  the 
House.  And  the  Member  jumped  out  first  and 
ran  up  the  steps  and  stooped  and  kissed  her  hand, 
while  she  did  not  look  at  him,  but  out  across  the 
park,  because,  being  a  great  lady  in  the  land,  she 
could  not  let  these  people  see  how  much  she 
cared,  as  other  women  could.  The  Candidate 
had  returned  bringing  his  sheaves  with  him,  and 
from  the  steps  of  the  place  that  had  been  his 
home,  and  to  the  people  who  had  known  him 
when  he  was  a  boy,  he  made  the  last  speech  of 
his  campaign.  I  do  not  remember  that  speech 
now,  except  that  I  went  away  suddenly  in  the 
midst  of  it,  and  gazed  steadfastly  at  a  somewhat 
blurred  painting  of  the  "Sixth  Countess  of  - 
at  the  age  of  nine  " ;  but  I  shall  always  remem- 


A    GENERAL    ELECTION    IN    ENGLAND  105 

her  that  home-coming — although  it  was  not  my 
home-coming,  and  although  I  was  a  rank  out- 
sider and  had  no  business  there  —  and  the  sun 
setting  behind  the  gray  walls,  and  the  long  line 
of  elms  throwing  their  shadows  across  the  park, 
and  the  cheering,  happy  crowd  of  tenants,  and 
the  tall,  beautiful  figure  in  the  red  cloak  standing 
silent  and  motionless  in  the  centre. 


Ill 

UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE   AT   OXFORD 

[HE  Oxford  undergraduate 
impressed  me  as  the  most 
interesting  combination  of 
shyness  and  audacity  that 
I  had  ever  met.  His  ex- 
treme shyness  seems  to  be 
his  chief  dissimilarity,  not  to  most  English- 
men, but  to  all  other  undergraduates.  I  mis- 
took it  at  first  for  hauteur,  and  a  personal  dis- 
inclination to  see  more  of  myself,  which,  as  I 
had  come  so  many  thousand  miles  to  see  him, 
was  discouraging  in  the  extreme.  But  after  he 
had  listened  to  me  with  marked  disapproval  for 
some  time  he  would  blush,  and  ask  me  to  dinner 
in  hall,  or  mention,  as  if  he  were  rather  ashamed 
of  the  fact,  that  he  expected  his  sisters  to  tea  in 
his  rooms,  or  that  some  of  the  men  were  coming 
to  breakfast  the  next  morning,  and  that  if  I  liked 
I  could  come  too.  As  he  kept  this  up  steadily 
for  the  whole  of  the  Eights'  week,  I  decided  that 
he  was  the  most  truly  hospitable  soul  I  had  met 
in  England ;  most  truly  so,  as  social  functions  of 
the  most  simple  order  were  so  evidently  a  trial  to 


UNDERGRADUATE  LIFE  AT  OXFORD      1 07 

him,  and  the  presence  of  a  stranger  a  cause  of 
much  personal  embarrassment  and  distress.  But 
when  it  was  not  an  occasion  of  ceremony,  and 
after  he  had  conquered  the  shyness  which  at  first 
lay  hold  upon  him,  he  developed  a  most  reckless 
and  audacious  spirit,  and  I  forgot  to  study  him 
in  trying  to  keep  up  with  his  different  moves,  and 
to  avoid  the  traps  he  laid  for  me,  and,  owing  to 
being  in  his  company,  the  wrath  of  the  townsfolk 
and  the  clutches  of  the  local  constabulary. 

The  town  of  Oxford  is  at  its  best  during  the 
week  in  which  the  eight-oared  boats  of  the  twenty 
colleges  belonging  to  the  university  row  for  mas- 
tery on  the  river.  It  is  then  filled  with  people 
up  from  London.  The  weather,  which  is  always 
to  be  considered  first,  is  the  best  the  year  gives, 
the  green  quadrangles  and  the  flowers  are  more 
beautiful  than  at  any  other  time,  and  every  after- 
noon the  river  overflows  with  boats.  The  beauty 
of  Oxford,  as  everybody  knows,  does  not  lie  in 
any  one  building  or  in  any  one  street ;  it  is  the 
abundance  and  continuing  nature  of  its  beauty 
which  makes  it  what  it  is.  It  is  not  like  any 
other  show  town  in  that  one  does  not  ride  or 
walk  from  the  inn  to  see  a  certain  cathedral  or  a 
particular  monument.  In  Oxford  with  every  step 
you  take  you  are  encompassed  and  shut  in  with 
what  is  oldest  and  best  in  architecture,  with  what 
is  softest  and  most  beautiful  in  turf  and  in  win- 
dow gardens  of  flowers.  You  cannot  go  to  the 


108  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

corner  to  post  a  letter  without  being  halted  by 
some  iron  gateway  which  you  have  not  seen  be- 
fore, or  a  row  of  mocking  gargoyles,  or  a  myste- 
rious coat  of  arms,  or  a  statue  half  eaten  by  the 
cannibals  of  Time  and  Weather.  You  rush 
through  whole  streets  —  being  in  a  hurry  to  see 
the  boats  start,  or  late  for  a  luncheon,  or  some 
such  important  matter  —  lined  with  crumbling 
walls  or  marvellous  facades,  with  glimpses  through 
great  doorways  of  radiant  gardens,  or  of  oaken 
halls  hung  with  old  paintings  and  marble  tablets. 
They  are  as  much  a  matter  of  course  as  are  the 
fire-escapes  in  New  York,  and  so  common  to  the 
town  that  you  see  them  as  a  whole,  and  regard 
them  as  little  as  you  regard  the  signs  on  the 
houses  as  you  rush  past  them  on  the  elevated. 
They  form  part  of  the  very  atmosphere,  and 
those  who  breathe  this  atmosphere  for  any  length 
of  time  grow  to  consider  Oxford  as  a  home,  and 
return  to  it  after  many  years  to  find  it  just  as 
dear  to  them  and  just  as  beautiful  and  almost  as 
old.  I  think  it  is  much  better  to  take  Oxford 
this  way  than  to  go  over  it  piece  by  piece  with 
Baedeker  in  hand  to  acquaint  one's  self  with  the 
window  of  the  headless  scholar,  with  the  tower 
that  Wolsey  built  overnight,  and  the  room  in 
which  Dr.  Johnson  wrote  something  very  impor- 
tant, the  name  of  which  I  forget.  Personally,  I 
confess  to  not  knowing  the  location  of  more  than 
three  of  all  the  twenty  colleges.  They  all  seemed 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT    OXFORD  109 

to  me  to  run  into  one  another.  And  then  it 
really  did  not  matter,  for  you  were  sure  to  reach 
the  one  for  which  you  had  started  if  you  made  a 
sufficient  number  of  wrong  turns,  and  asked  your 
way  from  every  third  undergraduate,  and  diso- 
beyed his  directions  implicitly.  And  then  the 
Eights'  week  is  not  a  time  in  which  one  can  best 
linger  before  stained- glass  windows.  For  the 
river  calls  you  by  day,  and  there  are  suppers  at 
night,  and  the  very  much  alive  undergraduates 
are  as  worthy  of  consideration  as  those  who  have 
gone  before,  and  who  remain  in  memorial  tablets 
or  on  darkened  canvas. 

Boating  is  a  much  more  serious  business  at 
Oxford  than  at  Yale  or  Harvard.  At  either  of 
these  two  latter  universities  a  Varsity  crew  and 
four  class  crews  are  as  much  as  the  undergradu- 
ates furnish,  while  at  Oxford,  where  there  are  no 
greater  number  of  students,  each  of  the  twenty 
colleges  places  eight  good  men  in  its  boat  every 
term,  and  from  them  supplies  a  Varsity  eight  as 
well.  And  these  are  only  the  official  representa- 
tives of  the  colleges,  for  apart  from  them  entirely 
are  the  private  canoes  of  many  curious  makes 
and  many  names,  besides  that  noble  and  worthy 
institution  the  Oxford  punt.  So  that  every  stu- 
dent owns  his  boat  as  a  matter  of  course,  just  as 
he  owns  his  umbrella,  and  uses  it  almost  as  fre- 
quently. 

There  is  a  story  of  a  Western  Congressman 


110  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

who  asked  why  the  American  people  should  com- 
plain of  the  inadequacy  of  their  navy.  "  All  we 
want  is  a  few  more  ships,"  he  said.  "We  have 
water  enough."  When  one  sees  the  Thames  at 
Oxford  and  its  branch  the  Cherwell,  one  is  in- 
clined to  transpose  this,  and  to  admit  that  the 
undergraduates  have  boats  in  sufficiency,  and 
that  all  they  need  is  a  little  water.  This  seems 
especially  true  when  a  punt  strikes  your  boat  in 
the  stern  and  two  pair  of  oars  form  a  barrier 
above  your  head,  and  a  confusing  chorus  of 
voices  assail  you  on  all  sides  with  "  Look  ahead, 
sir."  This,  however,  adds  an  element  of  excite- 
ment which  would  be  otherwise  lacking,  and 
teaches  you  to  be  polite  as  well  as  to  row,  or 
rather  to  steer,  for  it  can  hardly  be  called  rowing 
when  you  back  water  and  unship  your  oars  twice 
to  every  time  you  take  a  pull  forward.  At  Ox- 
ford a  man  is  first  taught  how  to  unship  his  oars, 
and  then  how  to  back  water.  After  he  can  do 
this  quickly,  in  spite  of  the  fixed  rowlocks,  which 
custom  still  fastens  to  all  save  the  racing-boats, 
he  is  taught  the  less -used  practice  of  pulling 
ahead.  But  the  very  number  of  the  boats,  while 
not  conducive  to  speed,  gives  the  wonderful  life 
and  color  to  the  dark  waters  and  overhanging 
trees.  The  girls  in  their  summer  frocks,  and  the 
men  in  their  brilliant  blazers  and  ribboned  caps, 
and  the  canoes  with  colored  parasols,  make  the 
little  river  and  its  little  branch  a  miniature  Hen- 


AN   OXFORD   UNDERGRADUATE 


ley  or  an  English  Venice,  and  at  the  same  time 
furnish  you  with  an  excellent  instance  of  British 
conservatism.  For  no  matter  how  musical  or 
noisy  the  men  in  your  boat  may  be,  or  how 
pretty  the  women,  those  in  the  other  boats  pass- 
ing within  a  yard  of  you  consider  you  as  little  as 
though  you  were  a  part  of  the  bank.  Their  eyes 
avoid  you,  and  their  ears  as  well.  A  man  could 
pass  between  the  double  rows  of  punts  and  ca- 
noes tied  in  the  shade  to  the  banks  of  the  Cher- 


112  OUR   ENGLISH    COUSINS 

well,  singing  or  shouting  or  confessing  a  murder, 
or  making  love  to  the  girl  in  the  bow,  and  no  one 
of  the  young  men  along  the  bank  within  reach  of 
his  oar  would  raise  his  head  from  his  novel,  or 
stop  pulling  the  ears  of  his  fox-terrier,  or  cease 
considering  the  bowl  of  his  pipe. 

The  course  over  which  the  races  are  rowed  at 
Oxford  is  a  little  less  than  a  mile.  The  Thames 
for  that  mile  is  about  as  wide  as  an  eight-oared 
boat  is  long,  or  ever  so  little  wider,  and  the  last 
half  of  the  course  is  lined  with  house-boats,  or 
"  barges,"  as  they  call  them.  Each  college  has 
its  barge,  and  each  barge  is  a  wonderful  thing, 
colored  and  carved  and  gilded  and  decorated  with 
coats  of  arms,  and  with  a  brilliant  flag  flapping 
above  it  of  silk  and  gold,  and  as  large  as  a  cam- 
paign banner.  They  look  like  enormous  circus 
band-wagons  robbed  of  their  wheels  and  floated 
on  rafts.  The  raft  part  of  the  barge  holds  very 
smart-looking  undergraduates  in  ribboned  straw 
hats  and  flannels;  the  barge  itself  contains  a  club- 
room,  with  racing  prints  on  the  walls  where  there 
are  not  windows,  a  long  table  for  tea,  and  a  dress- 
ing-room for  the  crew.  On  the  top  of  the  barge 
is  a  roof-garden  of  pretty  girls,  each  properly  chap- 
eroned to  the  third  and  fourth  degree  ;  and  some- 
times, when  the  college  to  which  the  barge  be- 
longs thinks  it  is  going  to  bump  the  boat  of 
another  college,  there  is  a  regimental  band.  Op- 
posite the  line  of  barges,  which  stretches  a  quar- 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD  113 

ter  of  a  mile  along  the  bank,  is  the  towing-path, 
and  back  of  it  meadows  filled  with  buttercups 
and  daisies.  This  towing-path  is  where  those 
who  "  run  with  the  boats  "  follow  the  race,  and 
where  the  towns-people  gather.  There  are  two 
races  on  each  day  of  the  Eights'  week,  one  for 
the  ten  second-best  boats  at  half-past  four,  and 
one  at  half-past  six  for  the  ten  first-best  boats. 
So  at  four  o'clock  each  day  the  town  of  Oxford 
suddenly  wakes  up,  and  the  people  begin  to  pour 
out  of  lodging-houses  and  quadrangles,  and  inns 
and  college  gardens,  and  what  seems  an  invading 
army  of  young  women  and  their  brothers  (you 
can  tell  they  are  their  brothers  because  they  wear 
the  same  ribbons  around  their  hats),  march  down 
the  High  to  the  river  in  the  middle  of  the  street 
rather  than  on  the  sidewalks,  and  so  increase  the 
similitude  to  an  organized  army,  and  make  one 
wonder  how  many  streets  there  are  at  home 
through  which  young  women  in  white  frocks  and 
young  men  in  pipe -clayed  cricket  shoes  could 
walk  so  serenely. 

Among  these  you  notice  many  young  men  in 
a  sort  of  undress  uniform,  which  is  very  undress, 
but  quite  uniform.  These  are  the  men  who  run 
with  the  boats,  and  who,  to  an  American,  form 
the  most  novel  and  picturesque  feature  of  the 
races.  Each  wears  a  blazer,  a  cap  with  his  col- 
lege arms  worked  upon  it,  a  jersey  cut  V-shape, 
a  muffler  around  his  neck,  heavy  knickerbocker 


114  °UR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

stockings  turned  down  at  the  calf,  and  a  pair  of 
running-breeches,  of  a  decollete  nature,  which  leave 
his  bare  knees  and  most  of  his  legs  as  free  and 
unimpeded  as  a  Highlander's. 

There  is  no  deviation  in  this  costume.  It  is  as 
rigorous  as  court  dress.  No  man  would  think  of 
wearing  a  high -neck  jersey  and  discarding  the 
heavy  muffler,  or  of  leaving  off  the  heavy  stock- 
ings and  substituting  long  flannel  trousers.  Men 
who  have  run  with  the  boats  have  always  worn 
just  those  things.  It  is  a  tradition.  You  can 
see  them  in  prints  and  in  the  illustrations  of  Tom 
Brown  at  Oxford  and  no  undergraduate  would 
think  of  changing  it.  These  men  who  are  going 
to  run  continue  on  up  the  towpath,  the  girls 
mount  the  different  barges,  or  get  into  punts  or 
row-boats  and  block  up  the  river,  and  the  sedate 
undergraduates  distribute  themselves  about  on 
the  raft  part  of  whichever  barge  is  called  for  by 
the  ribbon  on  their  hats.  It  is  quite  impossible 
not  to  come  back  to  these  ribbons.  No  one 
knows  until  he  goes  to  Oxford  how  many  com- 
binations can  be  made  out  of  the  primary  colors ; 
there  are  almost  as  many  as  there  are  combina- 
tions in  a  pack  of  cards.  Each  college  has  its 
ribbon,  and  each  college  crew,  cricket  and  foot- 
ball team,  and  all  of  its  various  dining  or  debat- 
ing societies,  have  their  individual  ribbon,  and  no 
two  are  alike.  As  there  are  twenty  colleges,  this 
calls  for  many  varieties  of  ribbon.  Those  men 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE  AT   OXFORD  115 

who  are  on  the  'varsity  Elevens  or  Eights  wear 
a  broad,  dark-blue  ribbon,  which  gives  them  the 
proud  title  of  "  a  Blue."  You  say  a  man  has  got 
his  Blue  as  you  say  Lord  Rosebery  has  been  given 
the  Garter,  or  you  say  a  man  is  a  Blue  just  as  you 
say  such  a  one  is  an  M.P.  or  a  V.C.,  only  you  say 
it  with  more  awe.  When  I  first  went  to  Oxford 
the  shopkeeper  offered  me  my  choice  of  three 
hundred  combinations  of  colors  for  my  hat,  and 
I  proposed  in  my  ignorance,  and  in  order  to  avoid 
any  possible  assumption  of  membership,  to  deco- 
rate it  with  one  of  plain,  modest  dark  blue.  If  I 
had  asked  the  yeoman  of  the  guard  to  deck  me 
out  in  the  regalia  in  the  Tower  of  London,  I  could 
not  have  been  crushed  with  a  more  indignant 
scorn  or  a  more  abrupt  refusal.  One  man  was 
pointed  out  to  me  at  Oxford  over  half  a  dozen 
times  as  "So-and-so  of  Pembroke."  This  was 
all  I  was  ever  told ;  I  was  evidently  supposed 
to  know  the  rest ;  but  as  I  did  not,  I  asked  one 
day,  expecting  to  hear  he  was  a  Senior  Wrang- 
ler, or  a  Newdigate  prize,  or  the  Son  of  Some- 
body, which  latter  does  not  count  for  much  at 
Oxford;  but  I  was  told  that  he  was  the  only 
man  in  the  university  who  had  made  a  serious 
study  of  the  college  ribbons ;  that  this  was  his 
life's  work,  his  particular  mtticr,  and  I  learned  to 
bow  with  respect  to  the  one  man  who  can  distin- 
guish by  a  glance  at  five  hundred  passing  under- 
graduates those  who  belong  to  the  Palmerston 


Il6  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

Club  and  those  who  play  on  the  eleven  for  Mag- 
dalen. 

A  bumping  race  seems  a  most  inexplicable  and 
rather  absurd  affair  to  Americans  as  they  hear 
of  it,  but  it  impresses  you,  if  you  see  it  often 
enough,  as  an  institution  of  distinctly  sporting 
qualities.  It  is  a  triumph  of  mind  over  matter, 
the  matter  in  this  particular  being  the  banks  of 
the  Thames,  which  lie  so  close  together  at  Ox- 
ford that  it  is  not  possible  for  two  boats  to  row 
abreast  for  any  great  distance.  To  overcome 
this,  the  undergraduates  of  long  ago  invented 
the  bumping  race.  Its  principle  is  briefly  this: 
A  certain  number  of  boats  are  placed,  one  after 
the  other,  in  a  line  at  equal  distances  apart ;  they 
are  then  started  at  the  same  instant,  and  the  ob- 
ject of  each  boat  is  to  increase  the  distance  be- 
tween itself  and  the  boat  immediately  behind  it, 
and  to  bump  with  its  bow  the  stern  of  the  boat 
immediately  in  front.  There  are  two  races  a  day 
for  one  week,  and  the  boats  that  are  bumped  on 
the  first  day  drop  back  on  the  next  day,  and 
start  one  place  lower  down  in  the  line — that  is, 
if  the  fourth  boat  of  the  ten  which  start  bumps 
number  three,  number  three  on  the  next  day  will 
drop  to  fourth  place,  and  number  four  will  proud- 
ly move  up  higher,  and  try  to  bump  number 
two. 

There  is  really  no  regular  finish,  so  far  as  the 
spectator  is  concerned,  to  a  bumping  race,  be- 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD  1 17 

cause  a  bump  may  take  place  anywhere  along 
the  course,  and  one  is  just  as  likely  to  see  the 
best  of  the  race  at  one  point  on  the  bank  as  at 
another.  But  the  barges  line  the  upper  end  of 
the  river,  where  all  those  boats  still  unbumped 
stop  after  they  have  reached  a  certain  point. 
The  start  is  made  quite  out  of  sight  of  the 
barges  a  mile  down  the  river,  at  the  upper  end 
of  one  of  its  sharpest  turns. 

To  see  and  appreciate  a  bumping  race  proper- 
ly, you  should  watch  the  start  of  one  race,  the 
finish  of  another,  and  at  another  time  "  run  with 
the  boats  "  along  the  bank.  The  boats  leave  the 
several  barges  to  take  up  their  places  at  the  start 
in  an  inverse  order  to  that  in  which  they  return 
—that  is,  the  boat  which  is  to  tail  the  procession 
coming  back  will  row  over  the  course  first,  and 
so  avoid  the  necessity  of  having  another  boat 
crowd  past  it.  As  the  first  eight  men  start  off, 
the  sedate  undergraduates  stamp  their  walking- 
sticks  into  the  flooring,  and  express  their  satis- 
faction at  the  sight,  by  guttural  murmurs  of 
approval  of  a  most  well-bred  and  self-contained 
nature ;  and  the  rival  crews,  who  are  drawn  up  in 
their  boats  beside  the  other  barges,  lift  their  oars 
slightly  and  rattle  them  in  the  rowlocks  as  a  sa- 
lute. Then  the  men  of  the  first  eight  pull  off 
their  sweaters  and  throw  them  to  the  undergrad- 
uates on  the  floating  raft,  and  the  trainer  takes 
the  blade  of  the  stroke's  oar  and  shoves  them 


Il8  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

out  into  the  stream;  and  the  cockswain,  who  is 
always  a  most  noisy  and  excitable  little  bully, 
who  abuses  and  beseeches  his  crew,  and  shows 
not  the  least  gratitude  to  them  for  giving  him 
such  a  pleasant  and  rapid  row,  cries  "  Get  away !" 
angrily,  and  the  eight  bend  nicely  together,  and 
on  the  third  stroke  are  well  off,  with  a  special  at- 
tention to  form  for  the  benefit  of  the  spectators 
on  the  barges.  There  is  just  room  for  them  to 
turn  when  they  reach  the  starting -place  below 
the  bend,  which  is  in  front  of  hanging  willows 
and  broad  low  meadows  and  an  old  inn.  On  one 
side  lies  the  towing-path,  a  narrow,  dusty  road 
close  to  the  bank,  and  on  the  other  the  green 
fields.  At  regular  intervals  along  the  towing- 
path  wooden  posts  mark  the  station  of  the  ten 
competing  boats,  which  are  kept  in  place  by  a 
waterman,  who  holds  the  bow  with  a  boat-hook, 
and  by  the  cockswain,  who  further  steadies  the 
boat  by  holding  one  end  of  a  cord,  the  other 
end  of  which  is  fastened  to  the  bank,  while  he 
clutches  the  tiller-ropes  in  his  right.  There  are 
two  signal -guns  —  one  five  minutes  before  the 
start,  and  the  second  four  minutes  later.  At  the 
first  gun  each  of  the  ten  boats,  lying  a  hundred 
feet  apart,  moves  out  into  the  stream,  the  water- 
man of  each  pushing  the  bow  from  the  bank,  the 
cockswain  leaning  forward  and  meeting  the  tug- 
ging of  the  oars  with  the  backward  pressure  of 
the  cord;  and  the  time -keepers,  of  which  each 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE  AT  OXFORD  119 

boat  has  one,  count  aloud  the  last  minute.  If  it 
is  a  still  afternoon,  you  can  hear  the  nearest  of 
them  counting  together,  the  men  in  the  boats 
sitting  meanwhile  as  immovable  as  figure-heads 
on  a  man-of-war,  and  the  five  or  six  hundred 
bare-kneed  runners  on  the  towpath,  who  are  wait- 
ing to  race  with  their  own  boat,  to  encourage  or 
warn  her  crew  as  the  need  may  be,  standing 
counting  also,  but  silently  and  with  only  their 
lips  moving. 

"  Thirty  seconds  gone,"  count  the  time -keep- 
ers ;  "  forty  seconds  gone  ;  fifty  seconds  gone. 
Four — three — two — one — row/'  and  at  the  last 
word  the  ten  cockswains  shout  in  unison,  the 
eighty  broad  backs  lunge  forward,  and  the 
scramble  to  touch  the  boat  ahead  and  to  keep 
out  of  the  clutches  of  the  one  behind  begins, 
and  continues  for  six  feverish  minutes.  There 
is  one  advantage  about  a  bumping  race  in  that 
the  men  can  see  how  near  they  are  to  being 
bumped,  while  they  cannot  see  without  turning 
completely  in  their  seats  how  near  they  are  to 
bumping  the  boat  in  front.  The  advantage  of 
this  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  are  always  sure  to 
pull  their  best  when  the  danger  is  greatest,  and 
that  the  cockswain  can  make  them  believe  they 
are  gaining  on  the  boat  in  front  by  simply  say- 
ing so.  To  further  warn  them  and  to  guide  the 
cockswain,  who  cannot  look  behind  him,  three 
men  accompany  each  boat  along  the  bank  with 


120  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

a  bell  and  a  revolver  and  a  policeman's  rattle. 
The  sounding  of  any  of  these  signifies  the  dis- 
tance one  boat  is  from  the  other. ' 

It  is  a  very  different  scene  at  the  other  end  of 
the  course.  The  green  meadows  there  are  crowd- 
ed with  people,  and  the  floating  grand-stands  of 
barges,  each  with  its  flag,  like  a  company  of  sol- 
diers, stand  as  in  review  for  the  march  past.  For 
a  time  hundreds  of  little  boats  move  along  the 
bank  and  block  the  channel  or  cling  to  the  rafts 
of  the  barges,  and  the  punts  of  the  Thames  con- 
servancy scurry  from  side  to  side  with  belated 
undergraduates  and  towns-people.  And  then  the 
river  grows  very  still,  and  every  one  listens.  A 
gun  from  very  far  off  sends  a  report  lazily  across 
the  meadows,  and  half  the  people  say,  "  It's  the 
first,"  and  the  other  half  that  it  is  the  "  second," 
and  while  they  are  discussing  this  the  gun  sounds 
again,  and  every  one  says,  "  One  minute  more." 
It  is  quite  still  now,  strangely  so  to  an  Amer- 
ican accustomed  to  college  yells  ringing  at  an 
athletic  meeting  even  before  the  contestants 
have  left  the  hotels  for  the  grounds.  And  he 
misses  the  rah-rahs  and  the  skyrocket  cries  and 
the  inquiries  as  to  who's  all  right,  and  the  songs 
in  which  the  fame  and  name  of  some  college 
hero  is  being  handed  down  to  his  four  years  of 
immortality.  He  compares  the  rival  cries  of  the 
different  observation  cars  along  the  New  Haven 
course  with  this  polite  and  easy  patience.  It 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE    AT   OXFORD  123 

might  be  a  garden-party  or  a  sailing  race  for  all 
the  enthusiasm  there  is  in  advance.  The  birds 
in  the  meadows  chirp  leisurely,  the  calm  of  a 
bank  holiday  in  London  settles  on  the  crowd, 
and  the  river  nods  and  rocks  the  boats  gently  as 
though  it  meant  to  put  them  to  sleep,  and  then 
from  very  far  off  you  think  you  hear  a  faint 
clamor  of  men's  voices,  but  it  dies  out  so  sud- 
denly that  before  you  can  say,  "  They're  off," 
you  are  glad  you  did  not  commit  yourself,  and 
then  it  comes  again,  and  now  there  is  no  doubt 
about  it.  It  is  like  the  roar  of  the  mob  in  a 
play,  unformed  and  uneven,  and  growing  slowly 
sharper  and  fiercer,  but  still  like  a  roar,  and  not 
measured  and  timed  as  the  cheering  is  at  home. 
There  is  something  quite  stern  and  creepy  about 
it,  this  volume  of  angry  sounds  breaking  in  on 
the  quiet  of  such  a  sunny  afternoon,  and  then 
you  see  the  first  advance  -  guard  of  the  army 
which  is  making  the  uproar,  and  the  prow  of  the 
first  boat  with  the  water  showing  white  in  front, 
and  the  eight  broad  backs  lunging  and  bending 
back  and  forth  and  shooting  up  and  down  the 
limit  of  the  sliding-seat  as  they  dart  around  the 
turn.  You  have  seen  men  row  before,  but  it  is 
quite  safe  to  say  you  have  never  seen  anything 
like  that  which  is  coming  towards  you  along  the 
broad  towpath.  If  you  have  ever  gone  to  an 
athletic  meeting  you  may  possibly  have  seen  as 
many  as  twenty  men  start  together  in  a  quarter* 


124  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

mile  handicap  race  with  the  whole  field  grouped 
within  six  yards  of  the  line,  and  you  may  have 
thought  it  pretty  as  they  all  got  off  together  in  a 
bunch.  But  imagine,  not  twenty  men  within  six 
yards  of  one  another,  but  hundreds  stretching 
shoulder  to  shoulder  for  half  a  mile  along  a 
winding  road,  all  plunging  and  leaping  and  push- 
ing and  shoving,  and  shouting  with  the  full 
strength  of  their  voices,  slipping  down  the  bank 
and  springing  up  again,  stopping  to  shout  at 
some  particular  man  until  others,  not  so  partic- 
ular, push  them  out  of  their  path,  and  others 
tear  on  and  leave  them  struggling  in  the  rear 
and  falling  farther  and  farther  behind  their  boat. 
Five  hundred  men,  each  in  a  different  color,  blue 
and  bright  scarlet,  striped  or  spotted,  parsons  in 
high  waistcoats  and  flannel  trousers,  elderly  dons 
with  children  at  home,  in  knickerbockers,  and 
hundreds  of  the  uniformed  barelegged  runners 
shooting  their  pistols  and  ringing  the  bells,  and 
all  crying  and  shouting  at  once :  "  Magdalen ! 
Magdalen  !  well  rowed,  Magdalen  !  Pembroke  ! 
you  have  them,  Pembroke  !  Balliol !  well  rowed, 
Balliol !"  When  the  last  boat  has  passed,  the 
others  not  in  the  race  sweep  out  over  the  river 
and  bridge  it  from  bank  to  bank,  and  the  dusty 
runners  on  the  towpath  throw  up  their  heels 
and  dive  into  the  stream,  and  cross  it  with  six 
short  strokes,  and  scramble  up  on  their  barge 
and  shake  themselves  like  Newfoundland  dogs, 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD  125 

causing  infinite  concern  for  their  safety  to  their 
sisters,  and  stampeding  the  smartly  dressed  un- 
dergraduates in  alarm.  And  then  every  one 
goes  into  the  barge  and  takes  tea,  for,  on  the 
whole,  but  for  the  turbulent  five  hundred,  a 
bumping  race  is  conducted  with  infinite  discre- 
tion and  outward  calm. 

The  Oxford  undergraduate  lives  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  tradition,  and  his  life  is  encompassed 
with  rules  which  the  American  undergraduate 
would  find  impossible,  but  which  impress  the  vis- 
itor as  both  delightful  and  amusing.  It  is  an 
amusing  rule,  for  instance,  which  forbids  the  un- 
dergraduate to  smoke  after  ten  o'clock  under 
penalty  of  a  fine,  which  fine  is  increased  by  two- 
pence if  the  smoking  is  continued  after  eleven 
o'clock.  There  is  something  so  delightfully  in- 
consequential in  making  smoking  more  perni- 
cious at  eleven  than  at  ten.  And  the  rule  which 
fines  an  undergraduate  of  Balliol  and  his  friends 
as  well  if  he  or  they  pass  the  gate  after  nine : 
I  used  to  leave  that  college  for  no  other  reason 
than  to  hear  the  man  at  the  gate  say,  "  You  are 
charged  to  Mr.  -  — ,  sir,"  which  meant  that  one 
of  the  undergraduates  would  have  to  pay  the  col- 
lege one  large  penny  because  I  chose  to  go  out 
and  come  in  again  at  the  unnatural  hour  of  ten 
in  the  evening.  There  were  also  some  delight- 
ful rules  as  to  when  and  where  the  undergradu- 
ate must  appear  in  his  cap  and  gown,  which  latter 


126  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

he  wears  with  a  careless  contempt  that  would 
greatly  shock  the  Seniors  of  the  colleges  in  the 
Western  States  who  adopt  the  hat  and  gown  an- 
nually, and  announce  the  fact  in  the  papers.  It 
struck  me  as  a  most  decollete  garment,  and  was 
in  most  cases  very  ragged,  and  worn  without 
much  dignity,  for  it  only  hung  from  the  shoul- 
ders to  the  waist  like  a  knapsack,  or  was  carried 
wrapped  up  in  a  bundle  in  one  hand. 

The  day  of  an  Oxford  man  is  somewhat  differ- 
ent from  that  of  an  American  student.  He  rises 
at  eight,  and  goes  to  chapel,  and  from  chapel  to 
breakfast  in  his  own  room,  where  he  gets  a  most 
substantial  breakfast — I  never  saw  such  substan- 
tial breakfasts  anywhere  else  —  or,  what  is  more 
likely,  he  breakfasts  with  some  one  else  in  some 
one  else's  rooms.  This  is  a  most  excellent  and 
hospitable  habit,  and  prevails  generally.  So  far 
as  I  could  see,  no  one  ever  lunched  or  dined  or 
breakfasted  alone.  He  either  was  engaged  some- 
where else  or  was  giving  a  party  of  his  own.  And 
it  frequently  happened  that  after  we  were  all 
seated  our  host  would  remember  that  he  should 
be  lunching  with  another  man,  and  we  would  all 
march  over  to  the  other  man's  rooms  and  be  re- 
ceived as  a  matter  of  course.  It  was  as  if  they 
dreaded  being  left  alone  with  their  thoughts.  It 
struck  me  as  a  university  for  the  cultivation  of 
hospitality  before  anything  else. 

After  breakfast  the  undergraduate  "  reads  "  a 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE  AT  OXFORD  127 

bit,  and  then  lunches  with  another  man,  and  reads 
a  little  more,  and  then  goes  out  on  the  river  or 
to  the  cricket -field  until  dinner.  The  weather 
permits  this  out-of-door  life  all  the  year  round, 
which  is  a  blessing  the  Oxford  man  enjoys  and 
which  his  snow-bound  American  cousin  does  not. 
His  dinner  is  at  seven,  and  if  in  hall  it  is  a  very 
picturesque  meal.  The  big  hall  is  rich  with 
stained  glass  and  full-length  portraits  of  cele- 
brated men  whose  names  the  students  never  by 
any  possible  chance  know,  and  there  are  wooden 
carved  wainscotings  and  heavy  rafters.  There  is 
a  platform  at  one  end  on  which  sit  the  dons,  and 
below  at  deal  tables  are  the  undergraduates  in 
their  gowns — worn  decorously  on  both  shoulders 
now,  and  not  swinging  from  only  one — and  at  one 
corner  by  themselves  the  men  who  are  training 
for  the  races.  The  twilight  is  so  late  that  the 
place  needs  only  candles,  and  there  is  a  great 
rattle  of  silver  mugs  that  bear  the  college  arms, 
and  clatter  of  tongues,  and  you  have  your  choice 
of  the  college  ale  or  the  toast  and  water  of  which 
you  used  to  read  and  at  which  you  probably  won- 
dered in  Tom  Brown  at  Oxford.  The  dons  are 
the  first  to  leave,  and  file  out  in  a  solemn  proces- 
sion. If  you  dine  with  the  dons  and  sit  above 
your  fellow-men  you  are  given  the  same  excellent 
and  solid  dinner  and  wine  in  place  of  beer,  and 
your  friends  of  the  morning  make  faces  at  you  for 
deserting  them  and  because  of  your  higher  estate. 


128  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

My  first  dinner  with  the  dons  was  somewhat 
confusing.  After  a  most  excellent  service  some- 
body rose,  and  I  started  with  the  rest  down  the 
steps  towards  the  door,  when  my  host  stopped 
me  and  said,  "  You  have  forgotten  to  bring 
your  napkin."  What  solemn  rite  this  foretold  I 
could  not  guess.  I  had  enjoyed  my  dinner,  and 
I  wanted  to  smoke,  and  why  I  needed  a  napkin, 
unless  as  a  souvenir,  I  could  not  see ;  and  I  con- 
tinued wondering  as  we  marched  in  some  certain 
order  of  precedence  up  and  down  stone  stair- 
ways and  through  gloomy  passages  to  another 
room  in  an  entirely  different  part  of  the  college, 
where  we  found  another  long  table  spread  as 
carefully  as  the  one  in  the  hall  below  with  many 
different  wines  and  fruits  and  sweets.  And  we 
all  sat  down  at  this  table  as  before,  and  sipped 
port  and  passed  things  around  and  talked  learn- 
edly, as  dons  should,  for  half  an  hour,  when  we 
rose,  and  I  again  bade  my  host  good-night,  but 
he  again  stopped  me  with  a  deprecatory  smile, 
and  again  we  formed  a  procession  and  marched 
solemnly  through  passages  and  over  stone  floors 
to  another  room,  where  a  third  table  was  spread, 
with  more  bottles,  coffee,  and  things  to  smoke. 
It  struck  me  that  an  Oxford  don  mixes  some 
high  living  with  his  high  thinking.  I  did  not 
wait  to  see  if  there  were  any  more  tables  hidden 
around  the  building,  but  I  suppose  there  were. 

After  dinner  the  undergraduate  reads  with  his 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE   AT   OXFORD  1 29 

tutor  out  of  college  or  in  his  own  rooms.  He 
cannot  leave  the  college  after  a  certain  early 
hour,  and  if  he  should  stay  out  all  night  the  con- 
sequences would  be  awful.  This  is,  of  course, 
quite  as  incomprehensible  to  an  American  as  are 
the  jagged  iron  spikes  and  broken  glass  which 
top  the  college  walls.  It  seems  a  sorry  way  to 
treat  the  sons  of  gentlemen,  and  more  fitted  to 
the  wants  of  a  reformatory.  There  is  one  gate 
at  Trinity  which  is  only  open  for  royalty,  and 
which  was  considered  to  be  insurmountable  by 
even  the  most  venturesome  undergraduate,  until 
one  youth  scaled  it  successfully,  only  to  be  caught 
out  of  bounds.  The  college  authorities  had  no 
choice  in  the  matter  but  to  send  him  down,  as 
they  call  suspending  a  man  in  Oxford ;  but  so 
great  was  their  curiosity  and  belief  in  the  virtue 
of  the  gate  that  they  agreed  to  limit  his  term  of 
punishment  if  he  would  show  them  how  he  scaled 
it.  To  this,  of  course,  he  naturally  agreed,  and  the 
undergraduates  were  edified  by  the  sight  of  one 
of  their  number  performing  a  gymnastic  feat  of 
rare  daring  on  the  top  of  the  sacred  iron  gate, 
while  the  college  dignitaries  stood  gazing  at  him 
in  breathless  admiration  from  below. 

Another  undergraduate  of  another  college  was 
caught  out  of  bounds  one  night  by  the  proctor, 
but  promised  a  merely  nominal  punishment  if  he 
would  disclose  by  what  means  he  escaped,  for  the 
walls  surrounding  the  college  were  deemed  im- 


130  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

pregnable.  He  had  to  choose  between  taking  a 
heavy  sentence  and  leaving  the  means  of  escape 
still  a  secret,  or  sacrificing  his  companions  and 
shutting  off  all  their  further  excursions  by  saving 
himself.  He  asked  the  authorities  to  allow  him 
three  days'  time  in  which  he  might  decide  wheth- 
er he  would  or  would  not  tell.  This  was  granted 
him,  with  the  warning  that  if  he  did  not  tell  he 
would  be  sent  down.  At  the  end  of  the  three 
days  he  appeared  before  the  college  board  and 
said  he  had  decided  to  tell  them  how  he  had  es- 
caped. "  You  will  find  my  answer,"  he  said,  "  in 
the  eighteenth  Psalm,  twenty-ninth  verse,"  and 
then  left  the  room.  The  dignitaries  hurriedly 
opened  a  prayer-book,  and  found  the  following : 
"  By  the  help  of  my  God  have  I  leaped  over  the 
wall."  The  young  man  was  not  sent  down  nor 
the  leak  in  the  wall  closed.  I  fear,  from  all  I 
could  hear,  that  almost  every  college  prison  in 
Oxford  has  its  secret  exit  and  entrance,  known 
only  to  the  undergraduates.  Sometimes  it  is  a 
coal-hole,  and  sometimes  a  tree  which  stretches  a 
friendly  branch  over  the  spiked  wall,  and  some- 
times a  sloping  roof  and  a  drop  of  eight  feet  to 
the  pavement ;  but  there  is  always  something. 
No  lock  ever  was  invented  that  could  not  be 
picked.  The  pity  is  that  there  should  be  a  lock 
at  all.  It  is  only  fair  to  say  of  these  prisons  that 
they  are  the  loveliest  prisons  in  the  world,  and 
that  they  are  only  prisons  by  night.  By  day  the 


HOW  SOME  WEAR   THE   GOWN 


UNDERGRADUATE   LIFE  AT   OXFORD  133 

gardens  and  lawns  of  the  quadrangles,  as  cultivat- 
ed and  old  and  beautiful  as  any  in  England,  are 
as  free,  and  one  wonders  how  any  one  ever  studies 
there.  One  generally  associates  study  with  the 
green-baize  table,  a  student-lamp,  a  wet  towel,  and 
a  locked  door.  How  men  can  study  looking  out 
on  turf  as  soft  and  glossy  as  green  velvet,  with 
great  gray  buttresses  and  towers  about  it,  and 
with  rows  above  rows  of  window  boxes  of  flowers 
set  into  the  gray  walls  like  orchids  on  a  dead 
tree,  and  a  lawn -tennis  match  going  on  in  one 
corner,  is  more  than  I  can  understand.  The  only 
obvious  answer  is  that  they  do  not  study.  I  am 
sure  the  men  I  knew  did  not.  But  there  must 
be  some  who  do,  else  from  where  would  come 
the  supply  of  dons? 

Different  colleges  turn  out  different  classes  of 
men.  The  reading  men,  who  go  in  for  firsts  and 
scholarships  and  such  distinctions,  haunt  one  col- 
lege ;  the  fast  set,  who  wear  the  blue  and  white 
ribbon  of  the  Bullingdon  Club,  go  to  another; 
the  conservative,  smart,  and  titled  men  go  to  a 
third  ;  the  nobodies  flock  by  themselves ;  and  the 
athletes  foregather  somewhere  else,  and  so  help 
to  make  up  the  personality  of  the  whole  uni- 
versity. 

If  I  were  asked  to  pick  out  the  characteristic 
of  the  Oxford  undergraduate  which  struck  me  as 
being  conspicuous  as  his  occasional  shyness,  I 
would  say  it  was  his  love  of  "ragging,"  and  that 


134  °UR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

when  he  is  indulging  in  what  he  calls  a  "  rag,"  at 
some  one  else's  expense,  he  is  in  his  most  inter- 
esting and  picturesque  mood. 

A  rag  is  a  practical  joke.  It  may  be  a  simple 
rag,  and  consist  of  nothing  more  harmful  than 
mild  chaffing,  or  it  may  be  an  ornate  and  care- 
fully prepared  and  rehearsed  rag,  involving  nu- 
merous accomplices  and  much  ingenuity  and  dar- 
ing. It  is  in  the  audacity  of  these  latter,  and  in 
the  earnestness  in  which  they  are  carried  out, 
that  the  Oxford  undergraduate  differs  most  wide- 
ly from  the  undergraduate  of  America.  The  Yale 
or  Harvard  Sophomore  does  a  wild  thing  occa- 
sionally, but  he  does  it,  I  fear,  chiefly  to  tell 
about  it  later,  and  is  rather  relieved  when  it  is 
over.  He  points  with  pride  to  the  barber-poles 
in  his  study,  but  he  does  not  relish  the  half-hour's 
labor  and  danger  spent  in  capturing  them.  The 
Oxford  man,  on  the  contrary,  enjoys  mischief  for 
mischief's  sake ;  he  will  never  boast  of  it  later, 
and  he  will  leave  one  evil  act  and  turn  abruptly 
to  another  if  it  appears  to  offer  more  attractive 
possibilities  of  entertainment.  And  he  carries 
off  his  practical  joking  or  chaffing  with  a  much 
more  easy  and  audacious  air.  This,  I  think,  is 
due  to  class  feeling,  which  is  in  the  atmosphere 
in  England,  and  which  does  not  exist  with  us. 
The  Harvard  student  may  think  he  is  of  finer 
clay  than  the  towns-people  and  the  tradesman 
and  policeman,  as  he  generally  is,  but  he  cannot 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE    AT    OXFORD  135 

bring  them  to  think  so  too.  That  is  where  his 
English  contemporary  has  so  much  the  advan- 
tage of  him.  The  Oxford  townsman  feels  an  in- 
born and  traditional  respect  for  the  gentleman  ; 
he  bows  meekly  to  his  eccentricities ;  he  takes 
his  chaff  with  smiles,  and  regards  the  undergrad- 
uate's impertinences  as  one  of  the  privileges  of 
the  upper  classes.  And  the  Oxford  man  knows 
it,  and  imposes  on  him  accordingly. 

It  is  rather  difficult  to  give  instances  of  a  rag 
and  avoid  making  the  undergraduate  appear  any- 
thing but  absurd.  One  cannot  show  in  writing 
the  earnestness  and  seriousness  with  which  these 
practical  jokes  are  conducted,  nor  the  business- 
like spirit  in  which  they  are  carried  out.  With- 
out this  they  lose  the  element  of  audacity  which 
always  saves  them  from  being  absurd,  and  raises 
them  to  the  plane  of  other  flights  of  the  imagina- 
tion ably  performed.  The  men  I  knew  seemed 
to  live  in  an  element  of  mischief.  They  would 
keep  me  talking  with  flattering  interest  until  the 
clock  struck  twelve,  when  they  would  leap  to 
their  feet  and  explain  that  it  was  now  past  the 
hour  when  any  one  could  leave  the  college,  and 
that  my  only  means  of  exit  would  have  to  be 
either  down  to  the  pavement  by  a  rope  of  sheets, 
or  up  through  it  by  means  of  the  coal-hole. 

Everything  they  saw  suggested  a  rag,  as  every- 
thing in  the  pantomime  is  material  for  mischief 
for  the  clown  in  the  pantaloon.  A  mail-coach 


136  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

standing  in  front  of  a  public-house  deserted  by 
its  driver  furnished  them  with  the  means  of  con- 
veyance into  the  country,  where  they  abandoned 
her  Majesty's  mail-wagon  three  miles  out  of  town, 
with  the  horse  grazing  by  the  hedges.  A  hand- 
organ  suggested  their  disguising  themselves  as 
Italians  and  playing  the  organ  around  Oxford, 
which  they  did  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  populace 
and  themselves,  their  expenses  being  three  pounds 
and  their  returns  two  shillings,  one  of  which  was 
given  them  by  a  friend  who  did  not  recognize 
them,  and  who  begged  them  to  move  on. 

One  night  during  Eights'  week  a  group  of 
men  stopped  to  speak  to  a  friend  who  was  per- 
mitted to  room  outside  of  the  college.  It  was  a 
very  warm,  close  night  in  June,  and  he  came  to 
the  door  dressed  only  in  his  bath  robe.  "  I  will 
make  you,"  one  of  the  men  said,  "a  sporting 
proposition.  I  will  bet  you  five  shillings  that  you 
won't  run  to  the  corner  and  back  in  your  bath 
robe."  He  said  that  if  they  would  make  it  ten 
shillings  he  would  run  the  distance  and  leave  the 
bath  robe  in  their  hands.  They  accepted  this 
amendment,  and  after  he  had  fairly  started  went 
inside  his  house  with  the  bath  robe  and  locked 
the  front  door.  The  impudence  of  Powers  in 
Charles  O'  Mai  ley  was  equalled  by  one  man  who 
said  while  showing  some  ladies  around  the  quad- 
rangle of  Balliol,  "  That  is  the  Master's  dining- 
room,  that  on  the  floor  above  is  the  Master's 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD  137 

study  window,  and  that,"  he  added,  picking  up 
a  stone  from  the  gravel  walk  and  hurling  it 
through  the  window,  "  is  the  Master  himself." 
On  another  night  during  Eights'  week  three  of 
them  disguised  themselves  as  a  proctor  and  two 
of  his  bull-dogs,  and  captured  a  visiting  friend  of 
mine  from  America,  who  had  been  led  into  their 
hands  by  myself  and  others  in  the  plot,  and  then 
basely  deserted.  The  mock  proctor  and  his  men 
declared  the  American  was  Lord  Encombe,  of 
Magdalen,  and  fined  him  ten  shillings  for  being 
out  of  college  after  hours  without  his  cap  and 
gown.  He  protested  that  he  had  no  connection 
with  the  university,  but  they  were  quite  as  posi- 
tive that  they  knew  him  very  well,  and  gave  him 
his  choice  of  paying  the  fine  or  going  instantly 
to  jail,  and  as  he  had  a  very  vague  idea  of  Brit- 
ish law  and  the  university  regulations  he  gave 
them  the  money.  This  they  later  returned  to 
him  with  his  card  before  as  many  of  the  college 
as  we  could  gather  together,  to  his  intense  dis- 
gust. He  is  now  waiting  with  anxious  hospital- 
ity for  the  first  Oxford  undergraduate  who  visits 
America,  and  promises  that  that  unfortunate 
individual  will  not  return  home  before  he  has 
been  brought  before  every  police  justice  in  New 
York. 

The  most  conspicuous  and  most  generally 
known  instance  of  ragging  is,  of  course,  the  way 
the  undergraduates  conduct  the  exercises  during 


138  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

Commemoration  week.  I  confess  I  looked  for- 
ward to  this  with  wicked  anticipation.  I  had 
read  of  it,  and  had  heard  those  who  had  seen  it 
tell  of  it,  and  I  questioned  if  it  were  so  bad  as  it 
was  painted,  even  though  I  had  seen  to  what 
lengths  the  undergraduate  would  go. 

The  Sheldonian  Theatre  is  a  single  circular 
building,  formed  inside  like  a  clinic -room  in  a 
hospital,  but  decorated  grandly  inside  and  out, 
and  open  to  the  sunlight  by  great  windows.  It  is 
topped  by  a  magnificent  dome.  In  the  morning 
of  the  day  when  the  degrees  were  to  be  bestowed 
it  was  filled  from  the  floor  up  to  this  dome  with 
young  girls  and  their  chaperons  in  the  lightest 
and  brightest  and  most  brilliant  of  summer  frocks. 
They  rose  tier  upon  tier  in  unbroken  circles  to 
the  balcony,  where  they  began  again,  and  ranged 
on  up  to  the  very  top.  It  was  a  very  pretty 
sight,  for  the  sun  shone  in  through  the  stained 
windows  in  broad,  generous  rays,  and  the  lesser 
authorities  of  the  university,  who  acted  as  ushers, 
wore  their  red  silk  hoods  and  gowns,  and  moved 
in  and  out  among  the  women,  looking  very 
learned  and  fine  as  the  sun  touched  their  white 
hair  and  their  long  mantles  of  rustling  silk. 
Standing  on  the  floor  in  the  circle  formed  by 
the  lower  balcony  were  the  visitors  and  the  col- 
lege dons  in  black  robes,  or  in  the  blue  serge  of 
every  day.  There  were  no  seats  for  them,  and 
so  they  moved  about  like  bears  in  a  bear-pit,  gaz- 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE    AT    OXFORD  139 

ing  up  at  their  friends,  and  pointing  out  the  ce- 
lebrities, and  talking  familiarly  of  the  great  men 
who  were  about  to  be  honored.  A  great  organ 
on  one  side  rumbled  out  soft  and  not  too  diffi- 
cult music  (at  home  we  would  have  spoiled  it 
with  a  brass  band)  and  helped  to  make  the  whole 
scene  impressive  and  dignified  and  beautiful. 

But  as  I  had  come  to  hear  the  undergraduates 
misbehave,  I  was  disappointed,  and  so  expressed 
myself.  The  man  who  had  brought  me  pointed 
to  the  balcony,  and  showed  where  different 
groups  of  students  were  sitting  together,  looking 
very  good  and  keeping  very  quiet  among  severe 
matrons  and  fresh,  sweet-looking  girls.  I  recog- 
nized several  of  my  friends  among  the  students. 
They  appeared  gloomy  and  resigned.  Some  one 
explained  this  by  saying  that  the  women  had 
been  crowded  into  the  balcony  to  scatter  the 
groups  of  undergraduates  and  to  shame  them 
into  silence.  I  was  exceedingly  disappointed. 
There  were  three  young  men  leaning  over  the 
balcony  facing  the  organist,  a  Mr.  Lopes.  He 
was  playing  something  of  Chopin's  gently,  as 
though  he  did  not  want  to  interfere  with  the 

O 

talk,  and  the  dons  and  the  girls  in  the  circles 
were  whispering,  as  though  they  did  not  want  to 
interrupt  the  music.  It  was  a  pretty,  well-bred 
scene,  a  mixture  of  academic  dignity  with  a 
touch  of  the  smartness  of  the  town.  And  so  we 
waited  politely  for  the  procession  of  dignitaries 


140  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

to  appear.  And  as  we  waited,  whispering,  there 
came  suddenly  on  the  hushed  warm  summer  air 
a  boy's  voice,  not  rudely  or  "  freshly,"  but  with 
the  quiet,  authoritative  drawl  of  an  English  gen- 
tleman. 

"  Mr.  Lopes,"  said  the  voice,  and  the  whisper- 
ing ceased  with  a  start,  and  the  organist's  fingers 
hesitated  on  the  keys. — "  Mr.  Lopes,  I  do  not 
care  much  for  Chopin  myself.  Can  you  play 
'  Ta-ra-ra  boom  de-ay  '  ?" 

From  the  other  side  of  the  gallery  a  young 
man  sprang  excitedly  to  his  feet.  "  Oh  no,  sir, 
don't  play  that !"  he  cried,  eagerly.  "  Play  the 
'  Old  Kent  Road.'  /can  sing  that." 

"  I've  heard  him  sing  it,"  a  third  voice  joined 
in,  anxiously,  "  and  I  hope,  sir,  you  will  play 
almost  anything  else." 

That  was  the  beginning.  From  that  on  for 
one  hour  the  building  was  absolutely  at  the 
mercy  of  the  undergraduates.  Then  one  of  the 
three  men  who  were  leaning  over  the  balcony, 
and  as  plainly  in  view  as  actors  on  a  stage,  pro- 
posed three  cheers  for  the  ladies.  The  response 
to  this  showed  that  though  the  undergraduates 
were  broken  up  into  small  bodies  they  were  as 
one  grand  unit  in  their  desire  to  take  a  promi- 
nent part  in  the  exercises. 

"  And  let  me  ask,"  added  the  young  man  who 
had  proposed  the  cheers,  politely,  "  that  you  give 
one  more  cheer  for  the  two  young  ladies  in  pink 


DOING   A   BIT   OF   READING 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE    AT   OXFORD  143 

just  coming  in,  and  who,  though  rather  late,  are, 
nevertheless,  very  welcome." 

This  speech,  which  was  accompanied  with  a 
polite  bow,  and  followed  by  enthusiastic  cheers, 
turned  the  two  young  ladies  into  the  color  of 
their  frocks,  and  drove  them  back  terrified  into 
the  quadrangle.  The  men  who  made  all  the 
trouble  did  not  attempt  to  hide  in  the  crowd 
about  them,  or  to  address  the  public  anony- 
mously. They  were,  on  the  contrary,  far  from 
shrinking  from  view,  and  apparently  just  as  far 
from  imagining  that  any  one  would  consider 
they  were  the  least  forward.  Their  manner  was 
serious,  and  rather  that  of  a  public  censor  who 
was  more  bored  than  otherwise  by  his  duties, 
but  who  was  determined  that  the  proceedings 
should  go  off  with  dignity. 

"  Come,  sir,"  they  would  say,  very  shortly, 
"  you  really  must  attend  to  your  duties.  You 
have  been  conversing  with  the  lady  in  the  blue 
bonnet  for  the  last  five  minutes,  and  several 
ladies  are  waiting  to  be  shown  their  places." 

They  did  not  laugh  at  their  own  imperti- 
nences, or  in  any  way  act  as  if  they  thought 
they  were  doing  anything  amusing  or  peculiar. 
It  was  the  earnestness  of  their  manner  and  their 
mock  anxiety  that  all  should  go  right  which 
made  it  funny.  And  the  most  absurd  thing 
about  it  was  the  obvious  awe  and  terror  in 
which  the  authorities  stood  of  them.  But  the 


144  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

audience  of  severe  matrons  and  learned  dons 
and  timid,  shy  girls  gazed  stolidly  before  them, 
and  took  the  most  audacious  piece  of  insolence 
in  that  same  unmoved  calm  with  which  they 
listened  to  the  Greek  oration. 

The  Vice -Chancellor  entered  at  the  head  of  a 
grand  procession  of  beadles  with  gold  maces,  fol- 
lowed by  those  who  were  to  receive  degrees,  and 
plunged  with  a  very  red  face  and  nervous  man- 
ner into  his  Latin  address,  through  which  he 
raced  breathlessly,  with  his  nose  glued  to  the 
page  and  his  ears  deaf  to  interruptions.  They 
began  by  telling  him,  "  Don't  be  shy,  sir,"  and 
"  Speak  louder,  sir ;"  and  then  one  man  suggest- 
ed doubtfully  that  it  was  "rather  too  good  to 
be  original ;"  and  another  said,  warningly,  "  You 
had  better  be  careful,  sir;  you  cribbed  that  line." 
Another  laughed  indulgently,  and  said,  in  a  con- 
fidential tone  of  encouragement:  "Don't  mind 
tJiein,  sir.  /'//  listen  to  you  ;"  and  another,  after 
a  pause,  exclaimed,  with  a  little  sigh  of  satisfac- 
tion, "  Now,  you  know,  /  call  it  rather  good." 
The  unfortunate  Vice-Chancellor  blushed  redder 
than  before  at  this,  and  in  turning  over  a  page 
hesitated  at  the  word  "  ut."  "  Ut,"  he  repeated. 
In  an  instant  twenty  men  had  thrown  them- 
selves anxiously  across  the  balcony.  "  Be  care- 
ful, sir,"  they  cried,  in  agony,  "  be  careful.  Do 
not  forget  the  subjunctive." 

"  Ah,"  they  added,  with  a  sigh  of  relief,  "  he 


UNDERGRADUATE    LIFE   AT   OXFORD  145 

knew;  he  knew;"  and  to  this  a  sceptic  added, 
gloomily:  "  I  don't  believe  he  knew.  Some  one 
must  have  prompted  him."  Then  another  voice 
said,  reprovingly,  "  I  trust,  sir,  you  do  not  intend 
to  take  up  our  time  much  longer,"  and  the  Vice- 
Chancellor  dropped  back  into  his  throne,  and, 
with  the  perspiration  rolling  down  his  face,  fold- 
ed his  robes  about  him  and  smiled  delightedly  at 
every  other  attack  on  every  one  else  during  the 
exercises. 

I  suppose  no  such  scene  is  reproduced  in  any 
other  country.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  believe 
that  such  a  situation  exists  out  of  one  of  Mr.  Gil- 
bert's operas.  The  head  of  the  greatest  univer- 
sity of  the  world,  surrounded  by  all  the  men  of 
it  and  other  universities,  and  those  men  highest 
in  art  or  literature  or  statesmanship,  and  each  of 
them  in  turn  at  the  mercy  of  a  hundred  boys  not 
yet  of  age,  literally  trembling  before  them,  and 
finding  the  honor  to  which  they  have  looked  for- 
ward turned  into  a  penance  and  a  nightmare. 
One  undergraduate  explained  it  partly  by  say- 
ing that  there  were  some  men  who  came  to  Ox- 
ford to  receive  degrees  who  thought  they  were 
conferring  rather  than  receiving  honor,  and  it  is 
for  their  especial  benefit  that  the  ragging  is  in- 
tended. "  It  puts  them  in  their  place,"  as  one 
boy  said,  gravely.  "  They  may  be  big  men  up 
in  London,  but  it  is  just  as  well  they  should 
know  we  don't  think  so  much  of  them  here." 


146  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

The  big  men  who  received  degrees  on  the  day 
I  was  present  were  treated  rather  mildly.  All 
but  a  very  fat  professor  from  Dublin  University, 
who  was  hailed  as  "  the  best  Dublin  Stout,"  and 
an  Indian  Prince  who  appeared  in  cloth  of  gold 
and  covered  with  stars  and  orders.  He  had  a 
somewhat  dusky  countenance,  and  one  of  the 
voices  asked,  anxiously,  "  Now,  sir,  have  you 
used  Pears'  soap?"  which  called  forth  a  chorus 
of  "  Shame !"  and  the  foreign  prince  was  loudly 
cheered  to  make  up  for  the  only  remark  of  the 
morning  which  struck  one  as  being  ungentle- 
manly. 


IV 


LONDON  IN    THE   SEASON 

ON  DON  always  impresses  one  at  any 
time,  in  season  or  out  of 
season,  as  such  a  great 
show  city,  a  show  city 
where  all  classes  of  peo- 
ple may  find  entertain- 
ment in  the  life  of  the 
city  itself — an  entertainment  which 
is  not  dependent  on  a  pretty  taste 
in  architecture,  or  a  knowledge  of 
the  city's  historical  values,  or  even 
upon  a  familiarity  with  its  language.  It  presents 
so  many  and  such  dissimilar  points  of  view  that 
the  Frenchman  who  objects  to  its  sombreness  will 
find  something  else  to  take  the  place  of  the  light- 
ness and  gayety  of  his  own  capital,  as  the  Afri- 
can monarch  who  visited  London  last  summer 
found  his  greatest  delight  not  in  the  majesty  of 
its  great  extent,  but  in  the  "  blue  kings,"  as  he 
called  those  who  stood  at  the  meeting  of  the 
highways,  and  who,  by  a  mere  raising  of  the 
hand,  directed  the  flow  of  traffic,  and  stopped 
even  him  until  an  omnibus  passed  by. 


148  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

And  the  show  is  so  free.  There  is  so  much 
which  comes  to  one  for  nothing,  which  is  given 
without  the  payment  of  a  shilling  fee,  and  which 
requires  no  guide-book.  An  idle  man  can  find 
entertainment  from  early  morn  until  midnight, 
though  not  later  than  that,  at  no  greater  cost 
than  the  mere  exercise  of  living  and  standing 
on  one  side  to  watch.  He  does  not  necessarily 
have  to  hunt  for  the  interesting  things.  They 
will  come  to  him  en  route.  There  is  nothing 
so  picturesque  in  any  other  city  of  the  world, 
perhaps,  or  which  gives  you  such  a  start  of  cu- 
rious pleasure,  as  the  Bluecoat  boy  swinging 
along  the  crowded  street,  as  unconscious  of  his 
yellow  legs  and  flapping  skirts  and  of  the  rain 
beating  on  his  bare  head  as  is  the  letter-carrier 
at  home  of  his  mail-bag.  Or  the  Lord  Mayor's 
carriage  blocks  your  way  when  you  go  into  the 
City  to  draw  on  your  letter  of  credit ;  or  a 
couple  of  young  barristers  in  waving  gowns  and 
with  wigs  askew  dash  in  front  of  your  hansom; 
or  you  are  stopped  by  a  regiment  of  soldiers, 
or  a  group  of  negro  minstrels  dancing  in  the 
street  with  as  little  concern  as  though  they  were 
separated  from  you  by  a  row  of  foot-lights ;  or 
you  meet  the  Despatch  and  the  other  coaches 
coming  along  Piccadilly  and  going  down  the 
steep  hill  from  that  street  to  St.  James's  Palace 
on  a  trot,  and  at  the  risk  of  every  one's  neck, 
apparently ;  or  the  Lifeguards  go  by  with  shin- 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  149 

ing  helmets,  and  with  the  lonely  rear-guard  two 
hundred  yards  behind  the  rest  to  prevent  an  un- 
expected attack  from  that  quarter,  from  whom  I 
never  could  guess ;  or  you  come  suddenly  upon 
the  proud  and  haughty  Piccadilly  goat  in  its  ram- 
bles, or  a  line  of  sandwich-men  dressed  like  sail- 
ors or  cooks ;  or  you  note  the  contrast  between 
the  victoria  with  the  men  on  the  box  in  pink  silk 
stockings  and  powdered  hair,  and  the  little  cos- 
ter's cart  piled  high  with  cabbages — as  incongru- 
ous a  sight  to  any  other  city  as  would  be  a  yoke 
of  oxen  on  Fifth  Avenue. 

But  what  make  the  streets  of  London  most 
interesting  are  not  the  badges  of  office  and  of- 
ficial uniforms,  but  the  unofficial  garb  and  in- 
signia which  the  masses  have  adopted  —  the 
milkman's  white  apron  and  wooden  yoke,  the 
commissionnaire's  medals  which  tell  of  cam- 
paigns in  Egypt  and  India,  or  the  bootblack's 
red  coat.  In  America  we  hate  uniforms  because 
they  have  been  twisted  into  meaning  badges  of 
servitude;  our  housemaids  will  not  wear  caps, 
nor  will  our  coachmen  shave  their  mustaches. 
This  tends  to  make  every  class  of  citizen  look 
more  or  less  alike.  But  in  London  you  can  al- 
ways tell  a  'bus-driver  from  the  driver  of  a  four- 
wheeler,  whether  he  is  on  his  box  or  not.  The 
Englishman  recognizes  that  if  he  is  in  a  certain 
social  grade  he  is  likely  to  remain  there,  and  so, 
instead  of  trying  to  dress  like  some  one  else  in 


150  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

a  class  to  which  he  will  never  reach,  he  "  makes 
up  "  for  the  part  in  life  he  is  meant  to  play,  and 
the  'bus-driver  buys  a  high  white  hat,  and  the 
barmaid  is  content  to  wear  a  turned-down  collar 
and  turned -back  cuffs,  and  the  private  coach- 
man would  as  soon  think  of  wearing  a  false  nose 
as  a  mustache.  He  accepts  his  position  and  is 
proud  of  it,  and  the  butcher's  boy  sits  up  in  his 
cart  just  as  smartly,  and  squares  his  elbows  and 
straightens  his  legs  and  balances  his  whip  with 
as  much  pride,  as  any  driver  of  a  mail-cart  in  the 
Park. 

All  this  helps  to  give  every  man  you  meet  an 
individuality.  The  hansom -cab  driver  is  not 
ashamed  of  being  a  hansom-cab  driver,  nor  is  he 
thinking  of  the  day  when  he  will  be  a  boss  con- 
tractor and  tear  up  the  streets  over  which  he 
now  crawls  looking  for  a  fare,  and  so  he  buys 
artificial  flowers  for  himself  and  his  horse,  and 
soaps  his  rubber  mat,  and  sits  up  straight  and 
business-like,  and  if  you  put  him  into  livery 
you  would  not  have  to  teach  him  how  to  look 
well  in  it.  He  does  not,  as  do  our  own  drivers, 
hang  one  leg  over  the  edge  of  his  seat,  or  drive 
with  one  leg  crossed  over  the  other  and  leaning 
forward  with  shoulders  stooped  as  though  he 
were  fishing  with  his  whip.  The  fact  that  you 
are  just  as  good  as  the  next  man,  as  the  Con- 
stitution says  you  are,  does  not  absolve  you  for 
performing  the  very  humble  work  you  chance  to 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  151 

be  doing,  in  spite  of  the  Constitution,  in  a  slov- 
enly spirit. 

The  first  show  of  the  day  in  London  is  the  pro- 
cession of  horses  in  the  Row.  It  lasts  from  nine 
to  eleven.  It  used  to  take  place  in  the  afternoon, 
but  fashion  has  changed  that ;  and  Englishmen 
who  have  been  in  the  colonies,  and  who  come 
home  on  leave,  and  walk  out  to  the  Row  at  four 
to  see  the  riders,  seldom  find  more  than  a  dozen 
from  which  to  pick  and  choose ;  and  they  will 
find  even  a  greater  difference,  if  they  go  at  the 
right  hour,  in  the  modern  garb  of  both  the  men 
and  the  women.  At  least  it  was  so  last  summer. 
The  light  habit  and  high  hat  of  the  girls  and  the 
long  trousers  and  cutaway  coat  of  the  men  had 
given  way  to  a  dishabille  just  as  different  as  dress 
can  be,  and  just  as  rigorous  in  its  dishabille  as  in 
its  previous  correctness  and  "  form."  The  women 
who  rode  last  summer  wore  loose  belted  blouses 
and  looser  coats  that  fell  to  their  knees,  straw 
hats,  and  their  hair,  instead  of  being  bound  tight- 
ly up,  was  loose  and  untidy,  and  the  men  ap- 
peared in  yellow  boots,  or  even  leggings,  and 
serge  suits  and  pot-hats.  All  these  things  were 
possible  because  the  hour  was  early,  and  because 
women  who  follow  the  hounds  dress  more  with 
an  eye  to  comfort  than  they  did,  and  others  dress 
like  them  to  give  the  idea  that  they  too  follow 
the  hounds. 

The  Row,  with  six  hundred  horses  on  it,  is  one 


152  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

of  the  finest  sights  of  this  show  city.  It  would 
not  be  possible  were  it  not  for  the  great  leisure 
class,  and  it  and  all  the  other  features  of  Hyde 
Park  show  not  only  how  the  leisure  class  is  rec- 
ognized as  an  institution  in  the  way  the  author- 
ities have  set  aside  places  for  it,  but  how  the 
people  themselves  not  of  that  class  bow  to  it, 
and  give  it  the  right  of  way.  There  is  nothing 
so  curious  or  incomprehensible  to  an  American 
as  this  tacit  recognition  that  somebody  is  better 
than  somebody  else.  We  never  could  get  any 
one  to  admit  that  in  this  country — except  those 
who  thought  they  were  the  better  ones,  and  they 
are  so  many ! 

After  you  have  seen  the  Row,  you  can  walk 
down  to  St.  James's  Palace  and  watch  them 
change  the  guard.  This  is  a  very  innocent  recre- 
ation, but  it  is  a  pretty  sight,  and  it  illustrates 
what  I  am  trying  to  show — that  there  is  so  much 
to  see  in  London  that  is  done  simply  because  it 
is  decorative  and  pretty  to  look  at ;  that  it  is  a 
thing  we  do  not,  I  think,  sufficiently  consider. 
We  do  things,  first,  because  they  are  necessary  or 
convenient,  or  because  they  save  time  ;  and  later, 
very  much  later,  we  make  them  look  presentable. 
Any  one  who  saw  the  trees  in  Madison  Square 
hung  with  colored  lanterns  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Columbian  celebration  in  New  York  must  have 
been  struck  with  this.  The  awe  of  the  people 
who  walked  through  that  very  beautiful  park  that 


LONDON    IN   THE   SEASON  155 

night,  and  their  bewilderment  at  having  some- 
thing given  them  for  nothing,  which  had  no  use, 
which  was  merely  ornamental,  was  rather  pa- 
thetic. They  could  have  understood  the  lighting 
of  the  city  by  electricity  in  place  of  gas,  but  not 
the  hanging  of  orange  globes  in  the  green  branch- 
es of  a  public  square.  But  the  English  go  about 
this  differently  ;  they  still  light  their  streets  by 
gas,  but  they  take  a  band  of  music  to  do  as  sim- 
ple a  thing  as  changing  a  guard.  We  have  no 
guards  in  America,  not  even  around  the  White 
House,  but  if  we  had,  we  would  relieve  it  at  a 
quickstep  and  in  a  most  business-like  manner. 

But  in  London  the  band  plays  every  day  at  a 
quarter  to  eleven,  and  a  great  crowd  of  people 
gathers,  and  the  soldiers  and  the  crowd  listen  to 
three  selections  from  the  band,  and  then  the  men 
salute  the  flag,  and  march  off  proudly  to  a  swing- 
ing march ;  and  the  crowd  breaks  up  and  goes 
off  about  its  business,  and  there  is  no  great  harm 
done ;  and  there  has  been,  on  the  contrary,  some 
very  good  music  and  a  brave  showing  of  red 
coats,  which  helps  the  recruiting  sergeants. 

If  you  hurry  from  St.  James's  Palace  yard  to 
Trafalgar  Square,  you  will  be  in  time  to  see  the 
coaches  start  from  in  front  of  the  Hotel  Victoria. 
That  is  also  a  pretty  sight,  and  as  there  are  sel- 
dom less  than  a  dozen  coaches,  and  as  there  are 
a  great  many  passengers  to  mount,  and  cold 
Scotches  to  be  taken,  and  extra  pulls  to  be 


156  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

given  to  the  harness,  it  takes  some  time.  If  you 
make  a  habit  of  going  down  to  see  the  coaches 
start,  you  will  soon  notice  that  there  are  many 
more  who  do  the  same  thing,  and  you  will  see 
the  same  gentlemen  gather  there  every  morning 
in  very  long  coats  and  very  curly  hats,  who  ex- 
amine the  same  legs  of  the  same  horses,  and  com- 
ment on  Mr.  King's  being  behind  time,  or  on  the 
fact  that  Arthur  Fownes  is  not  going  to  drive,  or 
on  some  such  other  important  matter.  There  is 
a  great  deal  of  color  and  cheery  ringing  blasts  of 
the  horns,  and  jangling  of  chains,  and  old-time 
picturesqueness  in  the  red-and-green  coats  of  the 
guards  and  the  familiar  names  on  the  panels,  and 
it  is  rather  interesting  to  note  that  it  is  owing  to 
the  delight  which  the  visiting  American  takes  in 
this  out-of-town  travel  that  the  coaches  are  able 
to  start  with  all  the  places  taken. 

Of  course  the  best  of  all  the  free  shows  in  Lon- 
don are  the  Houses  of  Parliament.  They  are 
more  interesting  to  an  American  than  our  Upper 
and  Lower  House  are  to  an  Englishman,  because 
the  American  knows  more  about  what  he  is  go- 
ing to  see  than  does  the  Englishman,  and  because 
he,  having  read  history  and  the  foreign  column 
of  his  daily  paper,  enjoys  that  rare  pleasure  of 
finding  things  just  as  he  has  been  told  he  would 
find  them,  and  knows  what  is  going  on.  He 
speaks  the  language,  as  it  were,  and  knows  his 
way  about,  and  does  not  have  to  keep  his  nose 


LONDON    IN    THE    SEASON  157 

in  the  libretto,  and  so  miss  all  the  acting.  I  once 
met  an  Englishman  I  knew  at  a  club  in  America 
which  happened  to  be  crowded  with  famous  men, 
and  told  him  he  was  very  fortunate  in  seeing  so 
many  distinguished  Americans  gathered  in  one 
place  and  at  one  time,  and  I  began  pointing  them 
out.  But  as  he  had  never  heard  of  any  of  them, 
he  saw  nothing  but  a  number  of  elderly  gentle- 
men in  evening  dress,  and  did  not  benefit  by  his 
opportunity ;  so  I  took  him  on  to  an  athletic 
club,  where  he  shot  at  a  mark,  and  apparently 
enjoyed  himself  very  much.  An  American  of 
the  same  class  would  have  read  the  books  or  the 
speeches  of  the  men  pointed  out,  and  could  have 
talked  to  them,  if  he  had  met  them,  with  benefit 
to  both. 

This  is  a  characteristic  of  the  American  which 
our  English  cousin  misunderstands  in  a  most 
aggravating  fashion.  He  explains  the  fact  that 
we  know  more  about  his  country  and  its  laws 
and  great  men  than  he  does  about  ours  as  a 
perfectly  natural  tribute  to  its  superiority,  just 
as  the  Western  man  is  expected  to  know  who  is 
Governor  of  New  York  State,  while  the  inhabi- 
tant of  New  York  is  excused  if  he  does  not  recol- 
lect who  may  be  Governor  of  Idaho  or  Dakota. 
This  is  not  the  proper  view  at  all.  The  American 
knows  more  about  England  than  Englishmen 
know  about  America  because  he  is  interested  in 
the  world  at  large,  and  not  only  in  the  county 


158  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

or  borough  in  which  he  exists.  He  would  feel 
ashamed  if  he  did  not  know.  The  Englishman 
is  not  ashamed.  He  thinks  it  perfectly  natural 
that  you  should  recognize  all  the  principal  men 
of  both  benches  in  the  House  of  Commons,  but 
he  does  not  feel  that  he  has  missed  anything,  or 
that  there  is  anything  missing  in  him,  when  he 
sees  nothing  in  the  House  of  Representatives  but 
a  large  room  filled  with  men  of  whom  he  has 
never  heard.  A  member  of  the  cabinet  of  last 
June  asked  me  whether  our  cabinet  ministers 
did  or  did  not  speak  from  the  floor  of  the  House. 
It  did  not  strike  him  that  that  question  was  not 
so  much  an  exhibition  of  interest  on  his  part  as 
of  ignorance.  He  asked  it  quite  innocently,  just 
as  if  it  were  something  he  could  not  possibly  be 
expected  to  know.  So  I  told  him,  gently,  that 
the  public  -  school  children  in  America  knew 
whether  cabinet  ministers  in  England  spoke  in 
the  House,  and  that  with  us  we  considered  know- 
ing just  such  things  part  of  the  education  of  a 
gentleman,  like  knowing  how  to  mount  a  lady  on 
horseback,  and  that  not  to  know  them  was  as 
something  to  hide,  like  a  soiled  pair  of  cuffs,  and 
of  which  it  was  proper  to  be  ashamed.  It  was 
not  that  we  looked  up  to  these  other  nations  and 
studied  them  in  consequence,  as  the  "saleslady" 
reads  the  society  column  which  treats  of  the 
Four  Hundred,  but  because  with  us  we  were  ex- 
pected to  know  of  Freycinet  and  Caprivi  and 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  159 

Rudini  and  Gladstone,  just  as  we  were  of  Cleve- 
land or  Reed. 

As  Goethe  says,  "  One  only  finds  in  Rome 
what  one  takes  there."  The  Englishman  takes 
nothing  to  America  but  himself.  The  Ameri- 
can takes  to  England  and  the  rest  of  Europe 
the  accumulated  learning  of  his  lifetime,  a  quick 
interest,  which  is  not  curiosity,  and  a  fore- 
knowledge of  the  traditions  and  present  daily 
life  of  what  he  sees.  And  so  when  he  enters  the 
House  of  Parliament  he  enters  it  with  the  full 
knowledge  of  all  that  it  means  and  has  meant 
for  centuries.  He  sees  the  trial  of  Warren  Hast- 
ings and  the  entrance  of  Cromwell ;  and  the 
white  marble  statues  along  the  corridor  from  the 
old  Hall  to  the  new  House  are  alive  to  him,  and 
pregnant  with  intelligence.  He  does  not  exclaim, 
"  These  are  the  halls  of  my  ancestors,"  "  Blood 
is  thicker  than  water,"  and  "  I  am  only,  after  all, 
returning  to  mine  inheritance." 

That  is  the  sort  of  stuff  American  consuls  talk 
at  London  dinners.  That  is  the  way  the  Eng- 
lishman bores  one  by  trying  to  explain  the  inter- 
est one  takes  in  his  history. 

"Ah,  yes !"  he  says,  "  you  feel  that,  after  all, we 
are  the  same  people." 

Some  Americans  may  feel  that  way,  and  thrill 
over  it.  I  know  one  American  who  does  not. 
It  is  not  that  we  were  once  one. people,  but  that 
the  Houses  of  Parliament  are  something  of 


160  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

which  we  have  read  and  heard,  and  are  not 
England's  alone,  but  the  world's.  We  would 
thrill  in  the  same  way  over  the  Pyramids  or  the 
field  of  Marathon  or  the  Champs-Elysees. 

I  once  heard  a  dear  old  lady  from  the  country 
say  to  her  equally  dear  old  husband  in  a  New 
York  horse-car,  "  Henry,  do  you  appreciate  the 
fact  that  we  are  on  Broadway?"  Broadway  to 
her  was  a  great  name  and  place  that  she  had 
thought  would  be  always  a  name,  and  she  found 
herself  part  of  it,  and  it  thrilled  her  simple  old 
heart.  It  was  not  because  her  great-grandfather 
had  once  kept  a  shop  on  Broadway.  And  so 
when  we  go  into  the  gallery  and  look  down  on 
all  the  men  of  whom  we  have  heard  so  long  we 
feel  things,  and  it  is  not  because  our  great-grand- 
father once  sat  in  those  halls  and  made  the  laws 
for  their  sovereign,  but  because  we  feel  we  are 
watching  men  make  history.  But  an  English- 
man cannot  understand  that. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  take  advantage  of  a  com- 
parison already  familiar  and  liken  the  interior  of 
the  Houses  of  Parliament  to  a  well-ordered  club. 
That  is  the  simplest  and  most  direct  way  of  de- 
scribing it.  The  decoration  is  no  more  serious 
nor  no  more  handsome  than  is  that  of  some  of 
the  older  clubs  on  Pall  Mall,  and  the  attitude  of 
the  ushers,  or  whatever  those  dignitaries  are 
called  who  look  like  bishops  and  wear  gold  chains, 
who  think  they  can  get  you  the  order  of  the  day, 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  163 

and  who  are  yet  human  enough  to  take  even 
a  shilling  for  doing  so,  is  strongly  suggestive  of 
the  club  servant.  The  smoking-room  is  like  any 
other  smoking-room,  with  its  leather  cushions  and 
electric  buttons  and  red-waistcoated  waiters,  and 
the  grill-room  just  as  hot,  over-lighted,  and  noisy 
as  most  club  grill-rooms ;  and  the  tea  on  the  ter- 
race while  the  heavy  barges  with  their  brown 
sails  and  the  penny  excursion  boats  go  by,  and 
with  Lambeth  Palace  across  the  way,  is  much 
more  suggestive  of  the  Lyric  Club's  terrace  far- 
ther up  the  Thames  than  the  breathing-ground  of 
a  great  legislative  body.  I  am  sure  the  tea  on 
that  terrace  has  had  much  more  influence  on 
the  politics  of  Great  Britain  than  all  the  much 
stronger  drinks  served  in  the  smoking-room  be- 
low-stairs.  And  if  it  were  wise  to  put  a  screen  in 
front  of  the  women  in  the  House  itself,  it  would 
seem  even  better  wisdom  to  screen  them  off  the 
terrace  as  well.  They  could  not  do  very  much 
harm  from  the  gallery,  even  were  the  lattice  taken 
away,  but  out  there  on  the  terrace,  in  the  late 
English  twilight,  and  with  the  moon  perhaps 
hanging  over  St.  Paul's,  and  all  the  various  lights 
of  the  Surrey  side  and  of  the  passing  craft  show- 
ing on  the  black  surface  of  the  river,  they  are 
v.ery  dangerous  indeed.  How  many  men,  one 
might  question,  have  decided  that  Conservatives 
were,  after  all,  very  nice  people,  and  their  wives 
and  daughters  at  least  most  innocent,  and  that 


164  OUK    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

Liberal  -  Unionist  sounds  better  than  Liberal, 
which  people  will  translate  Radical,  and  that  it 
is  rather  pleasant  to  be  taken  up  by  such  smart 
people  and  to  pour  out  tea  for  them. 

The  first  impression  one  gets  of  the  chamber 
of  the  House  of  Commons  is  that  it  is  so  very 
small.  It  does  not  surprise  you  to  find  the 
House  of  Peers  a  hall  of  somewhat  limited  pro- 
portions. That  seems  to  be  in  keeping  with  the 
exclusiveness  of  its  members. 

But  the  House  of  Commons  sounds  so  mo- 
mentous, and  such  great  things  have  been  car- 
ried out  there,  that  one  rather  looks  for  some- 
thing grand  and  imposing  and  impressive.  And 
when  you  take  your  place  in  the  gallery,  and 
lean  over  the  railing  to  look  down  upon  the  high 
hats  of  the  members,  you  feel  that  you  are  rather 
in  a  private  chapel  than  in  a  legislative  hall,  and 
that  by  reaching  out  your  hand  you  could  al- 
most touch  the  Speaker  in  his  high  chair,  which 
always  wickedly  suggested  a  Punch -and -Judy 
show  to  me,  and  the  top  of  which,  I  was  grieved 
to  note,  was  not  dusted. 

I  found  it  very  hard  at  first  to  grasp  the  fact 
that  the  gentlemen  sitting  on  the  benches  or 
walking  in  and  out,  and  making  little  bows  to 
the  Speaker  whenever  they  did  so,  whether  he 
was  looking  at  them  or  not,  were  the  real  men 
themselves  of  whom  we  have  read,  and  with 
whom  Punch's  "  Essence  of  Parliament "  and  the 


LONDON    IN   THE   SEASON  165 

illustrated  papers  have  made  us  familiar.  It 
was  interesting  to  think  you  were  hearing  be- 
fore any  one  else  the  speeches  or  the  arguments 
that  were  to  be  read  the  next  morning  in  Amer- 
ica and  India.  Going  to  the  House  day  after 
day  was  like  a  procession  of  "  first  nights"  given 
with  a  star  cast.  I  caught  myself  commenting 
with  some  surprise  on  how  like  the  men  were 
to  their  pictures,  and  that  there  really  was  a  lat- 
ticed grating,  and  that  the  shadowy,  moving  fig- 
ures behind  it,  like  the  ghostly  jury  in  "The  Bells," 
were  real  women  and  young  girls,  guarded  from 
view  like  slaves  in  a  harem  ;  and  that  there  were 
a  mace  and  a  gangway  and  a  master-of-arms  with 
a  sword,  just  as  Harry  Furniss  draws  him,  and  a 
reporters'  gallery,  where  Warrington  and  Charles 
Dickens  once  sat ;  and  that  Mr.  Balfour  did  wear 
gaiters,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  high -peaked  collars; 
and  that  the  Irish  members  were  as  obnoxious  as 
I  had  been  led  to  believe  they  would  be  ;  and  that 
the  Lord  Chancellor  in  the  Upper  House  looked 
just  as  he  did  in  "  lolanthe." 

It  was  like  seeing  one  of  Shakespeare's  plays 
on  the  stage  for  the  first  time  after  one  had 
studied  it  only  from  the  book.  What  impressed 
me  most  about  the  House  was  the  air  of  good- 
breeding  which  prevailed  there,  and  the  strict- 
ness of  the  etiquette — the  fact  that  the  members 
might  not  read  a  newspaper  within  its  limits,  and 
the  courtesy  with  which  they  bowed  and  gave  to 


l66  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

each  other  the  full  title.  It  seemed  so  cosey 
and  comfortable  —  legislation  made  easy,  as  it 
were  —  the  colors  were  so  harmonious  and  the 
coats  of  arms  so  numerous,  and  the  ubiquitous 
policemen  in  the  lobbies  and  halls  outside  so  ob- 
sequious, that  a  member's  life,  one  thought,  must 
be  a  happy  one.  And  they  have  such  amusing 
privileges  outside  the  House.  Their  hansoms 
may,  for  instance,  go  through  any  block  at  Wa- 
terloo Bridge,  no  matter  how  heavy  the  traffic  may 
be,  and  if  they  are  cabinet  ministers  they  can  go 
through  a  block  anywhere.  If  I  were  a  cabinet 
minister  I  would  take  a  hansom  by  the  hour,  and 
spend  my  time  riding  around  to  find  blocks  that 
I  might  be  let  through,  and  so  make  other  people 
envious.  And  inside  the  House  they  are  allowed 
to  ask  their  friends  to  dinner,  and  to  wear  their 
hats  all  the  time  and  everywhere,  even,  or  espe- 
cially—  for  some  of  the  Liberals  are  silly  enough 
to  make  a  point  of  it — when  the  Prince  of  Wales 
takes  his  seat  in  the  gallery. 

The  most  interesting  moments  in  the  House 
to  one  who  is  not  so  fortunate  as  to  be  present 
at  any  great  debate  is  question-time,  when  mem- 
bers of  both  parties  ask  questions  of  the  govern- 
ment. These  questions,  in  order  that  they  may 
be  answered  by  the  proper  persons,  require  the 
actual  presence  of  the  greater  number  of  the 
cabinet  or  of  their  under-secretaries,  so  that  one 
hears  and  sees  the  most  interesting  men  of  the 


LONDON    IN   THE   SEASON  167 

party  in  power  under  fire,  or  at  least  on  the  de- 
fensive. It  used  to  be  that  a  member  could  ask 
a  question  of  the  government  without  giving  any 
warning  as  to  what  the  question  was  to  be ;  but 
this  privilege  became  so  grossly  abused  by  those 
who  asked  only  embarrassing  questions  meant  to 
embarrass  that  the  questions  were  ordered  to  be 
printed  arid  sent  in  advance  to  the  heads  of  the 
different  departments  who  were  expected  to  an- 
swer them.  This  gave  them  some  time  to  pre- 
pare their  reply,  and  to  avoid  telling  too  much  or 
too  little. 

In  the  order  of  the  day,  which  is  furnished 
the  members  at  each  sitting,  these  questions 
now  appear  numbered  and  titled,  with  the  name 
of  the  man  who  is  to  ask  them.  When  his 
turn  comes,  he  rises  and  takes  off  his  hat,  and 
asks  the  Right  Honorable  the  Secretary  of  State 
for  the  Home  Department,  for  instance,  to  an- 
swer question  twenty -nine.  Then  the  gentle- 
man or  his  under-secretary  makes  a  more  or  less 
satisfactory  answer  in  a  very  few  words.  The 
value  of  these  questions  to  the  visitor  is  that 
they  show  how  far-reaching  and  multitudinous 
are  the  interests  of  the  House  of.  Commons. 
There  no  topic  is  so  trivial  that,  if  it  concerns  a 
British  subject,  it  is  not  important  enough  to 
command  the  attention  of  the  House,  and  you 
get  a  glimpse  of  a  paternal  government  which 
one  moment  causes  a  smile,  and  the  next  fills  you 


l68  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

with  wonder  at  the  greatness  of  the  system  that 
can  reach  out  from  Westminster  and  hold  an 
army  at  check  at  the  Khyber  Pass,  or  protect 
the  whaling- master  in  Bering  Sea,  or  punish  a 
policeman  on  the  Strand.  Nothing  is  too  little 
to  escape  its  notice,  and  nothing  too  momentous 
to  baffle  its  inquiry.  The  latter  fact  is  not  re- 
markable; that  seems  the  natural  burden  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  But  it  must  always  strike 
the  American  as  amusing  that  so  great  a  legis- 
lative body  should  take  up  its  own  time  in  the 
consideration  of  matters  which  a  police  justice 
could  adjust  as  satisfactorily. 

The  Irish  members  last  summer  were,  as  a  rule, 
the  most  aggressive  in  their  inquiries  and  their 
questions  the  most  trivial.  I  had,  as  I  suppose 
every  American  has,  a  sentimental  interest  in 
home-rule  until  I  had  seen  something  of  the  men 
who  stood  for  it.  Those  who  are  its  champions 
this  year,  now  that  the  other  party  is  in  power, 
and  since  home-rule  has  become  a  government 
measure,  are  no  doubt  a  very  different  class,  but 
the  Irish  members  of  1892  seemed  to  me  capable 
of  doing  their  cause  as  much  harm  as  any  mem- 
ber of  the  opposition  could  have  possibly  hoped 
to  accomplish.  They  were  the  representatives 
in  the  House  of  a  great  question,  a  great  measure, 
the  most  important  that  has  obtained  the  atten- 
tion of  the  House  for  many  years,  and  instead  of 
saving  their  strength  for  this  and  bearing  them- 


COACHES    AT   WHITEHALL 


selves  in  such  a  manner  as  to  gain  the  respect 
and  admiration  even  of  their  opponents,  as  they 
might  have  done  had  they  been  big  men  capable 
of  carrying  out  a  big  reform,  or  at  least  a  great 
change,  they  disgusted  even  their  friends,  and 
were  nothing  to  their  opponents  but  annoying 
mischief-makers.  They  seemed  to  indicate  by 
their  manner — and  very  bad  manners  they  were 
— that  they  intended  to  misbehave,  no  matter 
how  polite  the  others  might  be — in  spite  of  that 
fact,  indeed.  They  reminded  me  of  spoiled  chil- 


170  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

dren  who  were  proud  of  the  fact  that  they  were 
the  worst  boys  in  the  school,  and  would  not  be 
good  even  were  it  to  attain  their  own  ends.  And 
so  they  were  a  trial  to  those  who  were  sincere, 
who  were  in  earnest,  and  who  had  far  less  at 
stake,  and  a  burden  to  their  friends  and  a  delight 
to  their  enemies.  Englishmen  might  as  fairly 
ask  us  to  put  the  national  government  into  the 
hands  of  the  Tammany  sachems  as  for  us  to  ex- 
pect them  to  give  the  control  of  Ireland  to  the 
men  I  saw  last  year  at  Westminster.  This  is  not 
a  popular  way  of  looking  at  it  in  America.  But 
no  cause  is  better  than  the  men  who  represent 
it;  at  least  they  can  hardly  expect  others  to 
judge  it  by  any  higher  basis  than  their  own  show- 
ing. 

The  only  copy  of  the  orders  of  the  day  which 
I  have  kept  with  me  is  the  one  for  the  I3th  of 
June,  1892.  I  did  not  keep  it  with  any  intent, 
but  it  shows  excellently  well  the  character  and 
conduct  of  the  Irish  members,  and  illustrates  also 
what  I  have  said  about  the  variety  of  interests 
with  which  the  House  concerns  itself.  On  that 
day  it  appears  that  there  were  thirty  questions 
on  the  programme.  Twenty  of  these  were  asked 
by  the  Irish  members  alone ;  that  is,  two-thirds 
of  question-time  was  taken  up  by  a  half-dozen 
men  ,out  of  the  six  hundred  and  seventy  mem- 
bers. If  these  questions  were  legitimate  and 
sincere  one  could  only  applaud  the  interest  of 


LONDON    IN   THE   SEASON  171 

the  Irish  member  on  behalf  of  his  constituents, 
but  questions  like  these  seem  hardly  worth 
while : 

12.  Mr.  Sexton, — To  ask  the  Postmaster  -  General 
whether  he  is  aware  that  the  surveyor  for  the  northern 
district  of  Ireland  refused  to  forward  a  petition  from 
the  postal  staff  of  the  Belfast  office  because  the  peti- 
tion was  a  printed  one  : 

Whether  there  is  any  rule  which  directs  that  peti- 
tions should  be  in  manuscript : 

And  whether  any  English  surveyor  has  refused  to 
forward  a  similar  petition  on  the  same  ground. 

36.  Dr.  Tanner, — To  ask  the  chief  secretary  to  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  whether  any  steps  have 
been  taken  to  obtain  a  site  for  a  cottage  under  the 
laborers  (Ireland)  acts  in  the  parish  of  Doneraile, 
County  Cork,  near  Oldcourt  graveyard,  and  if  he  is 
aware  that  a  site  was  chosen  by  the  dispensary  com- 
mittee, approved  by  the  engineer  to  the  union,  but 
obstructed  by  a  local  tenant  farmer : 

And  whether,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  provision 
of  this  cottage  has  been  repeatedly  asked  for  by  the 
people  of  the  locality,  the  local  government  board  will 
take  steps  to  settle  the  matter. 

5.  Mr.  William  O'Brien, — To  ask  the  Secretary  of 
State  for  War  whether  he  is  aware  that  Martin  O'Don- 
nell,  at  the  date  of  his  enlistment  in  the  Connaught 
Rangers  at  Galway,  was  under  the  prescribed  age  for 
recruits : 

And  whether,  having  regard  to  the  fact  that  this 
young  lad  of  seventeen  years  of  age  is  the  only  sup- 


172  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

port  of  a  widowed  mother,  who  has  eight  other  young 
children,  he  will  order  O'Donnell's  discharge. 

19.  Mr.  Patrick  O'Brien, — To  ask  the  chief  secre- 
tary to  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland  whether  he  is 
aware  that  the  cow  of  a  laborer  named  Michael  Tray- 
nor,  of  Creerylake,  near  Carrickmacross,  County  Mon- 
aghan,  was  seized  on  the  4th  instant  by  a  bailiff  named 
Henry  Stubs  when  trespassing  on  an  evicted  farm  on 
the  Shirely  estate  and  impounded,  and  that  Stubs  de- 
tained the  animal  for  three  days,  and  charged  the 
owner  £3  before  releasing  it : 

And  what  was  the  charge  of  ,£3  for,  and  was  it  a 
legal  charge. 

Imagine  the  interests  of  an  empire  standing 
idle  while  its  representative  body  considers  the 
case  of  a  cow,  of  a  single  recruit,  and  of  the  site 
of  a  thatched  cottage.  Some  of  the  other  ques- 
tions of  that  day  show  the  extent  of  these  inter- 
ests, and  that  the  House  of  Commons  is  as  om- 
nipotent as  an  Eastern  Sultan  who  decides  upon 
going  to  war  or  upon  the  case  of  a  shoemaker  who 
will  not  pay  his  debts. 

21.  Major-General  Goldsworthy, — To  ask  the  Un- 
der-Secretary  of  State  for  India  whether  India  is  to 
be  represented  at  the  Chicago  Exhibition  ;  and  if  so, 
whether  the  government  of  India  proposes  to  give  a 
grant  in  aid. 

ii.  Mr.  Norris, — To  ask  the  First  Lord  of  the  Ad- 
miralty what  inducements,  if  any,  are  held  out  to 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  173 

the  junior  officers  of  the  navy  to  acquire  foreign  lan- 
guages, and  if  periodical  examinations  are  held  : 

And  if  he  is  aware  that  French  officers  who  visited 
England  last  year  expressed  surprise  at  the  deficiency 
in  this  respect  of  the  English  naval  officers. 

23.  Mr.  Henniker  Heaton, — To  ask  the  Postmaster- 
General  the  exact  date  and  hour  of  the  arrival  of  the 
Orient  steamship  Orotava  at  Naples  last  week,  at  what 
hour  the  mails  left  Naples  for  London,  and  the  cause 
of  the  delay  in  their  arrival  here. 

20.  Mr.  Sexton, — To  ask  the  Secretary  of  State  for 
the  Home  Department  if  it  has  been  brought  to  his 
knowledge  that  on  the  5th  of  February  last  Catherine 
O'Toole,  a  weaver,  had  one  of  her  eyes  destroyed  by 
a  blow  from  the  shuttle  of  a  loom  beside  where  she 
was  working  in  the  weaving  factory  of  the  Belfast  Flax 
Spinning  and  Weaving  Company  (Limited),  Waterford 
Street,  Belfast ;  that  another  weaver,  named  Lizzie 
Boyd,  had  one  of  her  eyes  destroyed  in  the  same  way 
in  the  weaving  factory  of  the  York  Street  Spinning 
Company  (Limited),  Belfast,  on  the  3d  of  May  : 

Were  those  injuries  caused  by  the  neglect  of  the 
employers  or  their  superintendents  to  have  suitable 
screens  erected  at  each  end  of  the  loom  so  as  to  pre- 
vent the  shuttle  flying  out  in  case  of  accident: 

And  whether  the  government,  having  regard  to  the 
frequency  of  such  accidents,  will  cause  to  be  appointed 
as  inspector  of  factories  in  Belfast  a  tenter  or  other 
person  recommended  by  the  Belfast  Trades  Council, 
and  having  practical  knowledge  and  experience  of  the 
working  of  such  looms. 

16.  Major-General  Goldsworthy, — To  ask  the  Un- 


174  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

der-Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  whether  he 
is  aware  that  in  December  last,  before  the  provisional 
regulations  were  issued,  a  petition  was  signed  by  ship 
owners  representing  over  5,000,000  tons  of  shipping, 
protesting  against  the  passage  of  petroleum  -  tank 
steamers  through  the  Suez  Canal. 

10.  SirGuyer  Hunter, — To  ask  the  Under-Secretary 
of  State  for  India  whether  the  rank  of  medical  officers 
mentioned  in  Article  26yA  of  the  recent  royal  warrant, 
as  carrying  "  precedence  and  other  advantages  indi- 
cated by  the  military  portion  of  the  title,"  has  been 
infringed  by  a  recent  ruling  of  the  commander-in-chief 
of  the  Bombay  army,  relative  to  the  position  at  mess 
of  medical  officers  organically  belonging  to  native 
regiments  in  India,  in  which  it  is  declared  that  the 
senior  combatant  officer  present  takes  military  prece- 
dence on  all  occasions ;  and  if  such  ruling  be  valid, 
what  is  the  precise  nature  and  scope  of  the  "  prece- 
dence "  set  forth  in  the  article  quoted  of  the  royal 
warrant. 

39.  Mr.  Causton, — To  ask  the  President  of  the 
Board  of  Trade  whether  he  can  inform  the  House  how 
many  boats  and  the  number  of  people  they  would  ac- 
commodate were  carried  by  the  steamer  Albert  Edward 
at  the  time  of  the  recent  collision  on  the  passage  from 
Boulogne  to  Folkestone  : 

And  how  many  passengers  were  on  board  the 
steamer  at  the  time  of  the  collision. 

These  latter  questions  show  the  actual  variety 
of  the  interests  of  the  House,  and  the  paternal 
nature  of  a  government  which  inquires  into  the 


LONDON    IN   THE   SEASON  175 

doings  and  wants  of  its  subjects  from  Chicago  to 
the  Suez  Canal,  and  from  Bombay  to  Boulogne. 
The  next  step  is  from  the  House  to  the  Park 
in  time  to  see  the  parade  of  carriages,  which  is 
possibly  less  interesting  than  the  people  who 
gather  to  look  at  it.  Fashion  has  moved  slowly 
but  surely  from  west  of  Hyde  Park  Corner  to 
Stanhope  Gate,  and  has  left  its  original  gathering- 
ground  to  country  cousins  and  foreigners,  who  sit 
like  people  in  a  theatre,  clutching  the  little  penny 
ticket  which  entitles  them  to  a  seat  over  a  most 
extensive  area,  and  gazing  open-eyed  at  the  pro- 
cession of  fine  horses  and  haughty  ladies  and 
still  haughtier  coachmen.  The  smart  people 
haunted  the  lawn  opposite  Stanhope  Gate  last 
year,  and  that  they  were  left  to  themselves  and 
that  no  one  not  of  their  class  came  to  stare  at 
them  is  one  of  the  curious  facts  that  an  Ameri- 
can cannot  understand.  If  it  were  the  rule  and  if 
it  were  understood  in  New  York  that  all  of  the 
Few  Hundred  intended  to  occupy  a  certain  por- 
tion of  the  Park  at  a  certain  hour  of  each  after- 
noon, it  would  not  be  very  long  before  all  the 
nurse-maids  would  circle  it  with  their  perambula- 
tors, and  people  not  of  the  Few  Hundred  would 
go  there  too,  some  of  them  because  they  wished 
to  stare  at  the  people  whose  names  they  had  read 
in  the  "  society"  column,  and  some  because  they 
wished  to  show  that  the  Park  belonged  equally 
to  them,  whatever  their  social  standing  might  be. 


176  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

But  this  is  not  the  case  in  London.  The 
lawn  opposite  Stanhope  Gate  is  as  free  as  the 
air  to  any  one  who  pays  his  penny  for  a  green 
chair,  but  no  one  not  of  a  certain  class  goes  there. 
They  sit  below,  recognizing  an  invisible  barrier; 
they  would  not  be  comfortable  opposite  Stan- 
hope Gate.  This  indefinable  and  unwritten  right 
of  the  upper  class  to  keep  to  itself  is  very  inter- 
esting. Under  that  tree  the  Duchess  of al- 
ways sat ;  in  this  corner  of  the  iron  railing  one 
was  always  sure  to  find  the  American  heiress;  and 

in  the  angle  of  the  railing  the  Hon.  Mrs. 

held  her  court  and  received  her  devotees.  No 
one  reserved  these  places,  and  yet  every  one  rec- 
ognized their  right  to  them,  as  they  recognize 
Mr.  Gladstone's  right  to  the  corner  seat  of  the 
first  bench  in  the  House.  It  is  even  more  strong- 
ly illustrated  at  Brighton.  There  is  a  long  pa- 
rade there,  stretching  for  miles  along  the  shore ; 
part  of  it  is  asphalt,  and  a  little  space  is  laid  out 
in  turf.  There  is  no  railing  around  the  turf,  no 
barrier  of  any  sort,  or  any  sign  to  mark  it  as  be- 
ing sacred  soil,  but  no  housemaid  or  landlady,  or 
even  the  most  quiet-looking  of  the  women  from 
"  the  Wood,"  would  think  of  walking  there.  It  is 
reserved  for  the  smart  people  by  some  unwritten 
law,  and  the  rest  of  the  world  not  of  their  world 
recognizes  this  and  keeps  off  the  grass  and  walks 
on  the  asphalt. 

The  spot  opposite  Stanhope  Gate  looked  more 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  179 

like  a  private  lawn -party  than  a  public  park. 
We  have  nothing  like  that  at  home.  The  Clare- 
mont  teas  had  to  be  fenced  in  with  cards  of  ad- 
mittance, and  they  were  somewhat  spoiled  by 
the  blasting  of  rock  in  the  near  neighborhood, 
and  the  sight  of  the  Harlem  goat  and  shanty 
within  a  few  hundred  yards.  Exclusiveness  is 
not  allowed  to  enjoy  a  healthy  growth  undis- 
turbed in  our  republican  garden. 

The  sights  of  London  at  night  do  not  begin 
until  very  late  on  account  of  the  delightfully  late 
twilights,  and  end  very  abruptly  at  midnight  on 
account  of  the  police.  But  when  the  hansoms 
begin  to  flash  past  by  the  thousands,  and  the 
theatres  open  up  their  doors  like  open  fireplaces 
in  the  night,  and  the  policemen's  lanterns  throw 
long  lines  of  light,  the  city  is  nearly  at  its  best. 
It  seems  to  hold  such  a  potential  possibility  of 
adventure  and  romance ;  it  becomes  mysterious 
and  momentous,  and  yet  widely  awake  and  brill- 
iant. You  feel  that  every  one  has  laid  aside  the 
burden  of  the  day,  and  is  intent  on  pleasure  or 
on  entertainment.  The  swift  rush  of  the  han- 
soms, even  when  they  have  no  fare  inside,  always 
struck  me  as  being  the  most  significant  sign  of 
the  hour,  as  though  even  the  horses  knew  that 
it  would  all  go  out  in  a  little  while  and  they 
must  make  the  best  of  their  time. 

London  has  wisely  divided  her  sources  of  pub- 
lic amusements  in  the  evening  between  the  music- 


180  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

halls  and  the  theatres.  To  the  theatre  go  the 
properly  clothed  men  and  women  from  late  din- 
ners, conscious  and  considerate  of  those  who  may 
sit  behind  them,  and  of  the  fitness  of  things  in  fine 
linen  and  bare  shoulders.  To  the  halls  go  the 
less  critical  and  less  particular.  I,  personally,  pre- 
ferred the  halls,  for  the  reason  that  the  audience 
is  a  part  of  the  entertainment,  and  that  one  can 
learn  the  feelings  of  the  Englishman  on  any  pub- 
lic question  much  more  at  first  hand  there  than 
by  reading  what  he  is  told  to  think  in  the  leading 
editorial  columns  of  the  papers.  It  is  significant, 
for  instance,  when  a  comic  singer  is  not  allowed 
to  continue  for  three  minutes  because  he  has  re- 
ferred to  Mr.  Gladstone  as  the  Grand  Old  Wom- 
an, and  when  a  plea  in  verse  for  Mrs.  Maybrick 
draws  forth  cheers,  and  a  figure  made  up  to  look 
like  Lord  Salisbury  elicits  shouts  of  derisive 
laughter.  It  was  in  the  music-hall  that  a  comic 
singer  gave  a  new  name  to  the  Conservative 
party  by  singing, "  We  don't  want  to  fight,  but 
by  jingo,"  etc.,  and  it  is  in  the  halls  that  the 
young  Briton  is  taught  to  sing,  "  God  bless  the 
Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales,"  and  to  hoot  at 
the  German  Prince  Henry  of  Battenberg. 

I  have  heard  a  comic  singer  stop  the  orchestra 
and  say  to  the  audience :  "  I  don't  think  you 
could  have  undersood  that  last  verse.  The  line 
was,  '  And  drive  these  German  boors  away.' 
Some  of  you  applauded ;  you  mustn't  do  that. 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  l8l 

You  must  hiss  that  line.  Now  we  will  try  that 
over  again  ;  and  don't  forget  to  hiss."  At  which 
he  would  repeat  the  verse,  and  the  audience 
would  hoot  and  hiss  at  the  appropriate  senti- 
ment. Some  paper — Punch,  I  think  it  was — de- 
scribed Lord  Randolph  Churchill  as  going  from 
shop-window  to  shop-window  counting  the  num- 
ber of  his  photographs  exposed  for  sale,  in  order 
to  compare  them  with  those  offered  of  Letty 
Lind  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  so  gauge  his  popu- 
larity. If  an  English  politician  really  wishes  to 
know  what  the  people  think  of  him,  he  should 
give  up  subscribing  to  a  newspaper -clipping 
agency  and  attend  the  music-halls.  He  would 
get  a  very  good  idea  of  his  popularity  there. 

The  sentiment  of  the  music-hall  song  differs 
according  to  location.  A  Conservative  song  will 
go  well  around  Leicester  Square  in  the  West 
End,  but  will  be  hissed  on  the  Surrey  side  or  in 
Islington.  So  some  of  the  performers  endeavor 
to  please  both  parties  by  giving  each  a  verse, 
and  then  adding  a  third  of  a  strongly  national 
and  patriotic  nature,  which  draws  both  factions 
together  and  leaves  the  actor  without  suspicion 
of  partiality  for  any  particular  party.  As,  for  in- 
stance, there  is  one  in  which  the  singer  tells  of 
his  asking  Lord  Salisbury  how  Mr.  Gladstone 
came  to  lose  his  place ;  this  was  sung,  of  course, 
before  the  last  general  election,  and  to  which 
the  Premier,  being  no  doubt  in  an  affable  mood 


182  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

and  without  suspecting  that  the  music-hall  man 
was  going  to  repeat  what  had  been  told  him,  in- 
forms him  that  it  was 

"All  through  his  greed  of  office. 
All  through  his  love  of  power. 
What  cares  he  for  old  England's  rights  ? 
The  Liberal  party  he  disunites. 
For  what?     For  the  votes  of  the  Parnellites. 
That's  how  he  lost  his  place." 

This  is  received  with  cheers  by  the  Conserva- 
tives and  hoots  by  the  Liberals,  which  latter  the 
comic  singer  hastens  to  appease  by  going  direct 
to  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  and  asking  him  for  his 
side  of  it.  He  addresses  him  in  this  way : 

" '  How  did  you  lose  your  place,  great  sire  ? 
How  did  you  lose  your  place  ?' 
I  asked  of  England's  Grand  Old  Man 
With  the  kind  and  careworn  face. 
His  gentle  eyes  looked  into  mine, 
And,  pausing  for  a  moment's  time, 
He  answered,  with  a  smile  sublime : 
'Why  did  I  lose  my  place? 
All  for  the  sake  of  Ireland, 
All  for  the  Emerald  Isle. 

I've  seen  the  world  and  my  friends  grow  cool; 
In  my  old,  old  age  they  call  me  a  fool ; 
But  I'll  live  to  see  Ireland  gain  home-rule, 
And  they'll  give  me  back  my  place.'" 


LONDON    IN    THE   SEASON  183 

This  song,  sung  to  a  very  stirring  melody,  has 
often  brought  the  performance  on  the  stage  to  a 
close  for  fully  three  minutes,  while  the  audience 
expressed  themselves  with  energy.  And  yet  we 
call  the  Englishman  stolid  and  unemotional. 
Imagine  an  American  audience  going  quite 
crazy  because  a  comic  song  spoke  disrespectfully 
of  one  or  the  other  of  the  Presidential  candi- 
dates !  But  it  has  a  healthy,  patriotic  quality 
about  it  which  is  most  pleasing,  as  is  shown  on 
the  last  verse  of  this  same  song.  In  this  the 
singer,  who  is  of  an  inquiring  mind  apparently, 
asks  an  "  aged  veteran  "  how  he  came  to  lose 
his  arm,  and  the  veteran  replies: 

"  '  Fighting  at  Balaclava  ; 

Fighting  for  England's  fame. 

I  was  in  front  when  the  charge  was  made 

Where  the  cannon  roared 

And  the  sabres  played, 

Riding  to  death  with  the  Light  Brigade. 

That's  how  I  lost  my  arm.' " 

With  a  fine  brass  band  playing  the  accompani- 
ment, and  a  large  drum  to  represent  the  cannon, 
and  a  man  to  sing  the  words  with  a  barytone 
voice,  this  last  verse  is  calculated  to  make  even 
the  casual  foreigner  stand  up  and  shout.  On 
the  whole,  I  consider  the  music-hall  a  much  mis- 
understood and  undervalued  entertainment.  It 
fosters  other  things  besides  patriotism,  though; 


184  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

its  devotees  are  neither  innocent  nor  ignorant 
of  the  world's  ways.  But  "  the  halls,"  as  one  of 
the  show  things  of  London,  have  their  proper 
place. 

They  are  not  always  the  noisy,  smoke  -  filled 
places  one  pictures  them.  They  are  like  any  other 
theatre,  with  gorgeous  plush  seats  and  great  di- 
vans and  velvet  curtains  and  proudly  uniformed 
attendants,  and  some  of  their  stars  are  artists  who 
draw  as  much  as  one  hundred  pounds  a  week,  and 
drive  around  the  streets  from  hall  to  hall  in  smart 
broughams,  with  "  Vesta  Tilly,  the  Vital  Spark," 
or  the  "  Sisters  Bilton,"  painted  on  the  lamps  in 
red  letters.  They  are  often  extremely  vulgar, 
and  as  frequently  as  dull ;  but  there  is  always 
something  to  redeem  the  rest — an  artist  like 
Albert  Chevalier,  or  a  countess  who  sings  queer 
songs,  or  the  friend  of  a  noble  duke  who  stops 
singing  to  take  the  house  into  her  confidence 
and  tell  them  of  her  private  difficulties,  and  who  is 
hailed,  consolingly,  as  "  Good  old  Bessie,"  because, 
I  suppose,  she  is  not  old,  and  certainly  not  good ; 
or  a  man  like  Rowley  or  Connors,  who  sings 
songs  in  which  the  entire  house  joins ;  and  I  can 
assure  those  who  have  not  heard  six  or  seven 
hundred  men  singing  the  chorus  of  a  comic  song 
that  it  has  a  most  interesting  effect. 

The  show  part  of  London  ends,  in  the  West 
End  at  least,  at  midnight.  It  can  be  continued 
behind  club  doors  after  that,  but,  as  far  as  the 


LONDON    IN    THE    SEASON 


i85 


streets  are  concerned,  London  is  either  an  im- 
possible place  in  which  to  walk  or  a  wilderness. 
To  a  clubless  visitor  it  is  the  most  inhospitable 
city  in  the  world.  Not  even  a  restaurant  is  open 
to  him,  and,  for  all  he  can  see  outside  of  the 
closed  doors,  the  curtain  is  down  and  the  show 
is  over.  This  is  the  strangest  feature  almost  of 
this  great  city,  its  prompt  good-night  at  twelve 
o'clock. 


THE   WEST  AND   EAST   ENDS   OF   LONDON 

T  has  seemed  so  difficult  to 
write  of  the  social  side  of 
the  London  season  that  I 
have  put  off  saying  any- 
thing of  it  until  now.  It 
is  necessary  to  touch  upon 
it  here,  or  to  leave  it  out  of 
consideration  altogether. 
To  do  the  latter  would  be 
like  writing  of  the  Horse 
Show  and  omitting  every- 
thing but  the  horses,  and 
to  do  the  former  puts 
the  writer  in  the  unpleas- 
ant light  of  criticising  those  who  have  been  civil 
to  him.  It  may  be  possible,  and  I  hope  it  may 
prove  so,  to  avoid  speaking  of  the  social  side 
of  the  London  season  in  anything  but  gener- 
alities. 

Of  course  the  most  obvious  differences  be- 
tween the  season  in  London  and  the  season  in 
New  York  are  due  to  the  difference  in  the  season 
of  the  year.  We  cannot  give  garden-parties  in 


THE   WEST  AND   EAST   ENDS   OF   LONDON          187 

December  or  February,  nor,  were  the  American 
fashionables  given  to  that  form  of  amusement, 
can  they  go  to  race  meetings  in  January.  Hence 
the  out-of-door  life  of  a  London  season  —  the 
lawn-parties  in  town,  the  water-parties  on  the 
Thames,  the  church  parade,  and  the  gatherings 
in  the  Row  in  the  morning  and  on  the  lawn  op- 
posite Stanhope  Gate  before  dinner,  the  week  at 
Ascot,  and  the  closing  of  the  season  at  Good- 
wood— is  of  a  kind  with  which  there  is  nothing 
similar  to  compare  in  New  York.  The  elements 
of  fashionable  life  which  are  most  alike  in  both 
cities  are  the  dinners  and  dances  and  the  opera. 
Dinners,  I  imagine,  are  pretty  much  the  same 
all  the  world  over,  and  the  dances  in  London,  at 
the  first  glance,  are  like  as  smart  dances  in  New 
York,  as  far  as  the  young  people  and  the  music 
and  the  palms  and  the  supper  and  such  things 
go.  There  is,  however,  a  very  marked  differ- 
ence in  the  solemnity  of  the  young  Englishmen 
and  in  the  shyness  and  sedateness  of  the  young 
girls.  There  are  certain  interests  to  offset  this, 
which  are  lacking  with  us,  one  of  which  is  the 
number  of  married  women  you  see  whose  faces 
are  already  familiar  to  you  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  through  their  photographs  in  shop  win- 
dows, and  who  keep  you  wondering  where  you 
have  come  across  them  and  their  tiaras  before, 
and  another  is  the  greater  number  of  servants, 
whose  livery  and  powdered  hair  add  color  to  the 


1 88  OUR   ENGLISH   COUSINS 

halls,  and  who,  when  they  pass  on  the  word  that 
"  Lady  Somebody's  carriage  blocks  the  way," 
are  much  more  picturesque  tnan  Johnson  in  his 
ulster  and  high  hat  calling  out  "  3  West  Madison 
Square."  There  is  a  more  brilliant  showing  of 
precious  stones  in  London,  and  the  older  men  in 
the  sashes  and  stars  of  the  different  orders  of  the 
empire  add  something  of  color  and  distinction 
which  we  do  not  have  at  home.  Otherwise  the 
scene  is  much  the  same. 

It  is  only  when  you  leave  the  ballroom  and  go 
out  on  the  lawn  or  into  the  surrounding  rooms 
that  you  come  across  an  anomaly  which  is  most 
disturbing.  The  American  girl  who  seeks  corners 
and  tops  of  stairways,  or  who,  when  the  weather 
permits,  wanders  away  from  the  lighted  rooms 
and  the  care  of  her  chaperon  into  the  garden 
around  the  house,  if  the  house  has  a  garden,  is 
sure  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  being  talked  about. 
Young  married  women  may  do  that  sort  of  thing 
with  us,  but  a  young  girl  must  remain  in  evi- 
dence, she  must  be  where  her  partners  can  reach 
her,  and  where  whoever  is  looking  after  her  can 
whisper  to  her  to  hold  herself  straight,  or  that 
she  is  dancing  her  hair  down.  If  she  wants  to 
talk  to  a  man  alone,  as  she  sometimes  does,  and 
her  mother  approves  of  the  man,  she  can  see  him 
at  her  own  home  over  a  cup  of  tea  any  afternoon 
after  five.  But  she  cannot  do  this  if  she  is  an 
English  girl  in  London.  So  when  the  English 


YOU   ARE  CONSTANTLY   INTRUDING 


THE   WEST  AND   EAST   ENDS   OF   LONDON         IQI 

girl  goes  to  a  dance  at  a  private  house  she  takes 
advantage  of  the  long  waits  between  each  dance, 
which  are  made  very  long  on  purpose,  and  rushes 
to  all  parts  of  the  house,  or  out  into  the  garden, 
where  she  sits  behind  statues  and  bushes.  So, 
when  you  wander  out  for  a  peaceful  smoke,  you 
are  constantly  intruding  upon  a  gleaming  shirt- 
front  and  the  glimmer  of  a  white  skirt  hidden 
away  in  the  surrounding  canopy  of  green.  It  is 
most  embarrassing.  I  had  been  brought  up  to 
believe  that  English  girls  were  the  most  overrid- 
den and  over-chaperoned  young  women  in  the 
world,  and  I  still  think  they  are,  except  in  this 
one  particular  license  allowed  them  at  dances. 
It  struck  me  as  most  contradictory  and  some- 
what absurd.  Why,  if  a  young  girl  may  not  see 
a  young  man  alone  at  her  own  house,  should  she 
be  allowed  to  wander  all  over  some  other  per- 
son's house  with  him  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is 
in  much  better  taste  to  do  as  we  do  and  let  the 
girl  see  the  man  under  her  own  roof. 

The  most  novel  feature  of  the  dance  in  Lon- 
don, which  does  not  obtain  with  us,  is  the  sud- 
den changing  of  night  into  day,  at  the  early  hour 
of  two  in  the  morning.  Daylight  obtrudes  so 
late  in  New  York  that  it  is  generally  the  signal 
for  going  home;  but  it  comes  so  early  in  the 
game  in  London  that  one  often  sees  the  cotillon 
begun  in  a  clear  sunlight,  which  does  not  mar, 
but  rather  heightens,  the  beauty  of  the  soft  Eng- 


IQ2  OUR   ENGLISH    COUSINS 

lish  complexions  and  the  fair  arms  and  shoulders 
of  the  young  girls,  even  while  it  turns  the  noblest 
son  and  heir  of  the  oldest  house  into  something 
distressingly  like  a  waiter. 

This  is  one  of  the  prettiest  sights  in  London. 
A  roomful  of  young  girls,  the  older  women  hav- 
ing discreetly  fled  before  the  dawn,  romping 
through  a  figure  in  the  smartest  of  dtcollett 
gowns,  and  in  the  most  brilliant  sunlight,  with 
the  birds  chirping  violently  outside,  and  the  fairy- 
lamps  in  the  gardens  smoking  gloomily,  and  the 
Blue  Hungarian  Band  yawning  over  their  fiddles. 
It  is  all  very  well  for  the  women,  but,  as  one  of 
the  men  said,  "  I  always  go  home  early  now ; 
one  hates  to  have  people  one  knows  take  one  for 
a  butler  and  ask  after  their  carriage." 

There  is  a  decorum  about  an  English  dance 
which,  I  should  think,  will  always  tend  to  keep 
the  hostess  in  doubt  as  to  whether  or  not  her 
guests  have  enjoyed  themselves  as  keenly  as  they 
assure  her  they  have  done  when  they  murmur 
their  adieus.  And  I  do  not  mean  by  this  that 
there  is  any  indecorum  at  a  dance  in  America, 
but  there  is  less  consciousness  of  self,  and  more 
evident  enjoyment  of  those  things  which  are 
meant  to  be  enjoyed,  and  no  such  terribly  trying 
exhibitions  of  shyness. 

Shyness,  it  struck  me,  is  the  most  remarkable 
of  all  English  characteristics.  It  is  not  a  pretty 
trait.  It  is  a  thing  which  is  happily  almost  un- 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS   OF    LONDON          193 

known  to  us.  The  Englishman  will  agree  to 
this  with  a  smile  because  he  thinks  that  we  are 
too  bold,  and  because  he  believes  that  shyness 
is  a  form  of  modesty.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort. 
It  is  simply  a  sign  of  self -consciousness,  and, 
in  consequence,  of  bad  breeding;  it  is  the  very 
acme  of  self-consciousness,  and  carries  with  it  its 
own  punishment.  People  with  us  are  either  re- 
served or  over-confident,  or  simple  and  sincere, 
or  bold  and  self-assertive  ;  but  they  are  not  shy. 
And  what  is  most  aggravating  is  that  the  Eng- 
lish make  shyness  something  of  a  virtue,  and 
think  that  it  covers  a  multitude  of  sins.  If  a 
man  is  rude  or  a  woman  brusque,  his  or  her 
friends  will  say,  "You  mustn't  mind  him,  he's  so 
shy,"  or,  "She  doesn't  mean  anything;  that's 
just  her  manner;  she's  so  shy."  The  English 
are  constantly  laughing  mockingly  at  their 
French  neighbor  on  account  of  his  manner,  and 
yet  his  exaggerated  politeness  is  much  less  try- 
ing to  one's  nerves  than  the  average  English- 
man's lack  of  the  small -change  of  conversation 
and  his  ever-present  self-consciousness,  which 
render  him  a  torment  to  himself  and  a  trial  to 
the  people  he  meets. 

There  are  different  kinds  of  shyness,  and  dif- 
ferent causes  for  it.  To  be  quite  fair,  it  is  only 
right  to  say  that  in  many  cases  the  Englishman's 
shyness  is  due  to  his  desire  not  to  appear  egotis- 
tical, nor  to  talk  of  himself,  or  of  what  he  does, 
13 


194  OUR   ENGLISH    COUSINS 

or  happens  to  have  done.  His  horror  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  boasting  is  so  great  that  he  often 
errs  in  the  other  direction,  and  is  silent  or  abrupt 
in  order  that  he  may  not  be  drawn  into  speaking 
of  himself,  or  of  appearing  to  give  importance  to 
his  own  actions.  Modesty  is,  I  think,  the  most 
charming  of  all  English  characteristics,  only  it  is 
in  some  instances  overdone.  In  our  country  a 
man  likes  you  to  refer  to  the  influence  he  wields: 
he  likes  you  to  say,  "A  man  in  your  position," 
or,  "Any  one  with  your  influence,"  or,  "  Placed 
as  you  are,  you  could  if  you  would."  It  is  the 
breath  of  his  nostrils  to  many  a  man. 

But  an  Englishman  detests  any  reference  to 
the  fact  that  he  is  an  important  personage  as  if 
it  were  something  over  which  he  ought  to  be 
pleased ;  he  wears  his  honors  awkwardly ;  more 
frequently  he  leaves  them  at  home.  He  does 
not  wear  his  war  medals  with  civilian  dress.  He 
is  quite  honest  in  his  disregard  of  title  if  he  has 
one,  though,  being  mortal,  he  thinks  as  much  of 
it  if  he  lacks  it  as  the  chance  American  does. 
But  he  does  not  say,  "  Come  down  to  my  house 
and  ride  my  horses  and  look  at  my  pictures."  If 
he  takes  you  over  his  place,  he  is  apt  to  speak  of 
his  ancestor's  tomb  as  a  "jolly  old  piece  of  work," 
just  as  though  it  were  a  sundial  or  a  chimney- 
piece,  and  he  is  much  more  likely  to  show  you 
the  family  skeleton  than  the  family  plate  and 
pictures. 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST   ENDS   OF    LONDON          195 

I  was  in  a  boy's  room  at  Oxford  last  summer, 
and  saw  a  picture  of  one  of  the  peers  of  England 
there,  a  man  who  has  held  the  highest  offices  in 
the  diplomatic  service.  "  Why  do  you  have  such 
a  large  picture  of  Lord  —  -  here?"  I  asked.  "  Do 
you  admire  him  as  much  as  that  ?" 

"  He's  my  father,"  he  said.  "  Of  course,"  he 
went  on,  anxiously,  "  he  doesn't  dress  in  all  those 
things  unless  he  has  to.  Here  is  a  better  por- 
trait of  him." 

And  he  showed  me  one  of  his  father  in  knick- 
erbockers. It  struck  me  as  a  very  happy  in- 
stance of  English  reserve  about  those  things  of 
which  the  average  American  youth  would  have 
been  apt  to  speak.  I  had  known  him  a  couple 
of  weeks,  but  on  account  of  his  bearing  the  fam- 
ily name  I  did  not  connect  him  with  his  father. 
The  "  things "  to  which  he  referred  were  the 
grand  crosses  of  the  orders  of  the  Bath,  and  of 
the  Star  of  India,  and  of  the  Indian  Empire.  An 
American  boy  would  have  pointed  out  their  sig- 
nificance to  you ;  but  the  English  boy  proffered 
the  picture  of  his  father  in  a  tweed  suit  instead. 

I  have  heard  Americans  in  London  tell  very 
long  stories  of  our  civil  war,  and  of  their  very 
large  share  in  bringing  it  to  a  conclusion,  and  as 
no  one  had  asked  them  to  talk  about  it,  or  knew 
anything  about  it,  it  used  to  hurt  my  feelings, 
especially  as  I  remembered  that  I  had  tried  to 
drag  anecdotes  of  the  Soudan  and  India  out  of 


196  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

the  several  English  officers  present,  and  without 
success.  So,  on  the  whole,  one  must  remember 
this  form  of  shyness  too.  But  the  shyness  which 
comes  from  stupid  fear  is  unpardonable. 

As  an  American  youth  said  last  summer,  "  It 
is  rather  disappointing  to  come  over  here  pre- 
pared to  bow  down  and  worship,  and  to  find  you 
have  to  put  a  duchess  at  her  ease."  I  asked  an 
Englishman  once  whether  or  not  people  shook 
hands  when  they  were  introduced  in  England.  I 
told  him  we  did  not  do  so  at  home,  but  that  Eng- 
lish people  seemed  to  have  no  fixed  rule  about 
it,  and  I  wanted  to  know  what  was  expected. 
"  Well,  you  know,"  he  said,  with  the  most  charm- 
ing naivete,  "  it  isn't  a  matter  of  rule  exactly ; 
one  is  generally  so  embarrassed  when  being  intro- 
duced that  one  really  doesn't  know  whether  one 
is  shaking  hands  or  not."  And  he  quite  expect- 
ed me  to  agree  with  him. 

If  the  English  themselves  were  the  only  ones 
to  suffer  from  their  own  lack  of  ease,  and  of 
the  little  graces  which  oil  the  social  wheels,  it 
would  not  so  much  matter;  one  would  only  re- 
gret that  they  were  not  having  a  more  agreeable 
time.  But  they  make  others  suffer,  especially 
the  stranger  within  their  gates.  Mr.  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  in  his  essay  on  "  The  Foreigner 
at  Home,"  tells  of  the  trials  of  the  Scotchman 
when  he  first  visits  England.  He  says:  "A 
Scotchman  is  vain,  interested  in  himself  and 


"PEOPLE  ONE  KNOWS  TAKE  ONE  FOR  A  BUTLER 


THE    WEST    AND    EAST    ENDS    OF    LONDON  199 

others,  eager  for  sympathy,  setting  forth  his 
thoughts  and  experience  in  the  best  light.  The 
egotism  of  the  Englishman  is  self-contained.  He 
does  not  seek  to  proselytize.  He  takes  no  inter- 
est in  Scotland  or  the  Scotch,  and,  what  is  the 
unkindest  cut  of  all,  he  does  not  care  to  justify 
his  indifference." 

If  the  Scotchman,  who  certainly  seems  reserved 
enough  in  our  eyes,  is  chilled  by  the  Englishman's 
manner,  it  is  evident  how  much  more  the  Ameri- 
can must  suffer  before  he  learns  that  there  is 
something  better  to  come,  and  that  the  English- 
man's manner  is  his  own  misfortune  and  not  his 
intentional  fault.  The  Englishman  says  to  this, 
when  you  know  him  well  enough  to  complain, 
that  we  are  too  "  sensitive,"  and  that  we  are  too 
quick  to  take  offence.  It  never  occurs  to  him 
that  it  may  be  that  he  is  too  brusque.  If  you 
say,  on  mounting  a  coach,  "I  am  afraid  I  am 
one  too  many,  I  fear  I  am  crowding  you  all,"  you 
can  count  upon  their  all  answering,  with  perfect 
cheerfulness,  "  Yes,  you  are,  but  we  didn't  know 
you  were  coming,  and  there  is  no  help  for  it." 
It  never  occurs  to  them  that  that  is  not  perhaps 
the  best  way  of  putting  it.  After  a  bit  you  find 
out  that  they  do  not  mean  to  be  rude,  or  you 
learn  to  be  rude  yourself,  and  then  you  get  on 
famously. 

I  have  had  Americans  come  into  my  rooms  in 
London  with  tears  of  indignation  in  their  eyes, 


200  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

and  tell'of  the  way  in  which  they  had  been,  as 
they  supposed,  snubbed  and  insulted  and  neg- 
lected. 

"  Why,"  they  would  ask,  "  did  they  invite  me  to 
their  house  if  they  meant  to  treat  me  like  that  ? 
I  didn't  ask  them  to  invite  me.  I  didn't  force 
myself  on  them.  I  only  wanted  a  word  now  and 
then,  just  to  make  me  feel  I  was  a  human  being. 
If  they  had  only  asked  me,  '  When  are  you  go- 
ing away?'  it  would  have  been  something;  but 
to  leave  me  standing  around  in  corners,  and  to 
go  through  whole  dinners  without  as  much  as  a 
word,  without  introducing  me  to  any  one  or  rec- 
ognizing my  existence —  Why  did  they  ask  me 
if  they  only  meant  to  insult  me  when  they  got 
me  there?  Is  that  English  hospitality?" 

And  the  next  day  I  would  meet  the  people 
with  whom  he  had  been  staying,  and  they  would 
say,  "  We  have  had  such  a  nice  compatriot  of 
yours  with  us,  such  a  well-informed  young  man: 
I  hope  he  will  stop  with  us  for  the  shooting." 

As  far  as  they  knew  they  had  done  all  that 
civility  required,  all  that  they  would  have  done 
for  their  neighbors,  or  would  have  expected 
from  their  own  people.  But  they  did  not  know 
that  we  are  not  used  to  being  walked  over 
rough -shod,  that  we  affect  interest  even  if  we 
do  not  feel  it,  and  that  we  tell  social  fibs  if  it 
is  going  to  make  some  one  else  feel  more  com- 
fortable. It  is  as  if  the  American  had  boxed 


THE    WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS    OF    LONDON         2OI 

with  gloves  all  his  life,  and  then  met  a  man 
who  struck  with  his  bare  fists ;  and  it  naturally 
hurts.  And  the  most  pathetic  part  of  the  whole 
thing  is  that  they  do  not  know  how  much  bet- 
ter than  their  own  the  breeding  of  the  Amer- 
ican really  is.  It  is  like  the  line  in  the  Interna- 
tional Episode,  where  the  American  woman  points 
out  to  her  friend  that  their  English  visitors  not 
only  dress  badly,  but  so  badly  that  they  will  not 
appreciate  how  well  dressed  the  Americans  are. 
I  have  seen  a  whole  roomful  of  Englishmen  sit 
still  when  a  woman  came  into  her  own  drawing- 
room,  and  then  look  compassionately  at  the 
Americans  present  because  they  stood  up.  They 
probably  thought  that  we  were  following  out  the 
rules  of  some  book  on  etiquette,  and  could  not 
know  that  we  were  simply  more  comfortable 
standing  when  a  woman  was  standing  than  we 
would  have  been  sitting  down. 

And  it  will  not  do  to  say  in  reply  to  this  that 
these  Englishmen  of  whom  I  speak  were  not  of 
the  better  sort,  and  that  I  should  not  judge  by 
the  middle  class.  I  am  not  writing  of  the  middle 
classes.  "  It  was  the  best  butter,"  as  the  March 
hare  says. 

I  have  had  Americans  tell  me,  and  most  inter- 
esting Americans  they  were,  of  dinners  in  Lon- 
don where  they  had  sat,  after  the  women  left  the 
room,  in  absolute  isolation,  when  the  men  near 
them  turned  their  backs  on  them,  and  talked  of 


202  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

things  interesting  only  to  themselves,  and  left  the 
stranger  to  the  mercies  of  the  butler.  Imagine 
anything  like  that  with  us  !  Imagine  our  neg- 
lecting a  guest  to  that  extent — and  an  English- 
man too!  We  might  not  like  him,  and  probably 
would  find  him  a  trifle  obtuse,  but  we  would  not 
let  him  see  it,  and  we  would  at  least  throw  him 
a  word  now  and  again,  and  ask  him  if  he  meant 
to  shoot  big  game,  or  merely  to  write  a  book 
about  us.  It  might  be  that  we  never  intend- 
ed to  read  his  book,  or  cared  whether  he  shot 
moose  or  himself,  but  as  long  as  he  was  our  guest 
we  would  try  to  make  him  feel  that  we  did  not 
consider  our  responsibility  was  at  an  end  when 
we  gave  him  bread-and-butter.  But  the  average 
Englishman  and  English  woman  does  not  feel 
this  responsibility. 

I  remember  a  dinner  given  in  New  York  last 
winter  to  a  prominent  Englishman  who  was  vis- 
iting this  country,  when  there  happened  to  be  a 
number  of  very  clever  men  at  the  table  who  were 
good  after-dinner  talkers,  and  not  after-dinner 
story-tellers,  which  is  a  vastly  different  thing. 
The  Englishman's  contribution  to  the  evening's 
entertainment  was  a  succession  of  stories  which 
he  had  heard  on  this  side,  and  which  he  told 
very  badly.  The  Americans  were  quite  able  to 
judge  of  this,  as  they  had  told  the  stories  them- 
selves many  different  times.  But  they  all  lis- 
tened with  the  most  serious  or  amused  interest, 


THE    WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS    OF    LONDON          203 

and  greeted  each  story  with  the  proper  amount 
of  laughter,  and  by  saying,  "  How  very  good," 
and  "  Quite  delightful !"  Then  they  all  reached 
under  the  table  and  kicked  the  shins  of  the  un- 
happy host  who  had  subjected  them  to  this  trial. 

In  England  it  would  not  have  been  the  host 
nor  his  English  friends  who  would  have  suffered. 

I  went  with  a  man  who  had  never  been  in 
London  before  to  a  garden-party  last  summer, 
and  warned  him  on  the  way  that  he  would  not 
be  introduced  to  any  one,  and  that  after  he  had 
met  his  hostess  he  would  probably  be  left  rooted 
to  a  block  of  stone  on  the  terrace,  and  would 
be  as  little  considered  as  a  marble  statue.  He 
smiled  scornfully  at  this,  but  half  an  hour  after 
our  arrival  I  passed  him  for  the  third  time  as  he 
stood  gazing  dreamily  out  across  the  park  just 
where  I  had  left  him.  And  as  I  passed  he 
dropped  the  point  of  his  stick  to  the  ground, 
and  drew  it  carefully  around  the  lines  of  the  slab 
of  marble  upon  which  he  was  standing,  and  then 
continued  to  smile  peacefully  out  across  the 
lawn.  I  do  not  think  they  treat  us  in  this  way 
because  we  are  Americans,  but  because  we  are 
strangers,  and  London  is  a  very  busy  place,  and 
a  very  big  place,  and  those  who  go  about  there 
have  their  time  more  than  taken  up  already,  and 
have  but  little  to  spare  for  the  chance  visitor. 
They  treat  their  own  people  in  the  same  way. 
The  governor's  lady  of  some  little  island  or  mill- 


204  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

tary  station  in  the  colonies,  who  has  virtually 
boarded  and  lodged  and  danced  and  wined  the 
distinguished  English  family  who  visited  the 
statio.n  in  their  yacht  last  winter,  thinks,  poor 
thing,  when  she  reaches  London  that  she  will 
receive  favors  in  return,  and  sends  her  card  ex- 
pectingly,  as  she  has  been  urged  not  to  forget  to 
do,  and  she  is  invited  to  luncheon.  And  after 
luncheon  her  hostess  says  :  "  Good-bye.  We  are 
going  to  Lady  Somebody's  musical.  Shall  we 
see  you  there?  No?  Then  we  shall  meet  again, 
I  hope."  But  unless  they  meet  at  a  street  cross- 
ing, it  is  unlikely. 

It  is  the  same  with  those  young  English  subal- 
terns who  come  back  from  India  and  Egypt 
tanned  and  handsome  and  keen  for  the  pleasures 
of  the  town,  and  who  have  been  singing  for  years, 
"When  will  we  see  London  again?"  and  find  their 
three  months'  furlough  slipping  by  with  nothing 
to  show  for  it  but  clubs  and  theatres,  and  who 
go  back  abusing  the  country  and  the  town  that 
have  failed  to  mark  their  return  or  to  take  note 
of  their  presence.  I  know  one  woman  in  London 
who  expends  her  energies  in  asking  cards  for 
things  for  young  lieutenants  back  on  leave,  who 
appoints  herself  their  hostess,  whose  pleasure  is 
in  giving  these  young  men  pleasure,  and  who 
makes  them  think  the  place  they  call  home  has 
not  forgotten  them.  When  they  have  gone  back 
to  the  barracks  or  the  jungle,  they  have  more  to 


'NOTHING  TO  SHOW  FOR  IT  BUT  CLUBS  AND  THEATRES 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST   ENDS   OF    LONDON         207 

thank  her  for  than  they  know,  and  many  pleas- 
ant things  to  remember.  I  rather  like  her  mis- 
sionary work  better  than  that  of  Dr.  Bernando. 

There  are  a  great  many  Americans  who  will 
tell  you  that  we,  as  Americans,  are  very  popular 
in  London;  that  the  English  think  us  clever  and 
amusing  on  account  of  our  "quaint  American  hu- 
mor," and  our  too-curious  enthusiasm  over  their 
traditions  and  their  history  and  its  monuments. 
It  may  be  that  I  am  entirely  mistaken,  but  I  do 
not  think  that  we  are  popular  at  all.  I  think  we 
are  just  the  contrary.  As  for  our  American  hu- 
mor, they  do  not  understand  what  is  best  of  it, 
and  they  laugh,  if  they  laugh  at  all,  not  with  us, 
but  at  us.  Those  Americans  who  are  willing  to 
be  a  success  through  being  considered  buffoons, 
are  perfectly  welcome  to  become  so,  but  it  does 
not  strike  me  as  an  edifying  social  triumph.  The 
Americans  who  are  very  much  liked  in  London, 
whether  men  or  women,  are  not  the  Americans 
of  whose  doings  we  hear  at  home  ;  they  are  not 
likely  to  furnish  the  papers  with  the  material  for 
cablegrams,  and  do  not  take  the  fact  that  they 
have  been  found  agreeable  by  agreeable  people 
as  something  of  so  surprising  a  nature  that  they 
should  talk  about  it  when  they  return  to  their 
own  country. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  think  the  English  care 
less  for  Americans  than  they  do  for  any  other 
foreigners.  They  think  us  pushing,  given  to 


208  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

overmuch  bragging,  and  too  self-assertive.  They 
judge  us  a  good  deal  by  the  Americans  they 
meet  at  Homburg,  who  give  large  tips  to  the 
head  waiter  to  secure  the  tables  near  that  of  a 
certain  royal  personage  at  luncheon-time ;  or  by 
those  whom  they  chance  to  meet  in  a  railway 
carriage,  and  who  spend  the  time  in  telling  them, 
uninvited,  how  vastly  inferior  are  their  travelling 
accommodations  to  those  of  the  Chicago  limited 
express,  with  its  "  barber  shop,  bath-room,  type- 
writer, and  vestibule-cars,  sir,  all  in  one."  I  used 
to  get  so  weary  of  the  virtues  of  this  American 
institution  that  I  vowed  I  would  walk  the  ties 
when  I  returned  home  sooner  than  enter  its  rub- 
ber portals  again.  You  can  see  what  they  think 
of  our  bragging  by  the  anecdotes  they  tell  you, 
which  are  supposed  to  be  characteristic  of  Ameri- 
cans, and  the  point  of  which,  when  there  is  a 
point,  invariably  turns  on  some  absurdly  prodi- 
gious or  boasting  lie  which  one  American  tells 
another. 

They  also  judge  us  a  great  deal,  and,  not  un- 
naturally, by  what  we  say  of  each  other,  and  one 
cannot  blame  them  for  thinking  that  those  of  us 
whom  they  meet  in  town  during  the  season  must 
be  a  very  bad  lot. 

It  is  almost  as  impossible  to  hear  one  Ameri- 
can speak  well  of  another  American  in  London 
as  to  hear  the  cock  crow  at  dinner-time.  "  Oh, 
she's  over  here,  is  she?"  they  say,  smiling  myste- 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS   OF    LONDON         2OQ 

riously.  "  No,  I  don't  know  her.  She's  not  ex- 
actly — well,  I  really  shouldn't  say  anything  about 
her;  she  is  not  a  person  I  would  be  likely  to 
meet  at  home."  I  used  to  get  so  tired  of  hear- 
ing one  American  abuse  another  because  he  hap- 
pened to  know  a  duchess  that  the  other  one  did 
not  know,  because  she  was  asked  to  a  country- 
house  to  which  the  other  wanted  to  go,  that  I 
made  it  a  rule  to  swear  that  every  man  about 
whom  they  asked  me  was  considered  in  America 
as  one  of  the  noblest  of  God's  handiworks,  and  I 
am  afraid  now  that  I  may  have  vouched  for  some 
very  disreputable  specimens.  They  were  not 
worse,  however,  than  those  Englishmen  who 
come  to  us  each  winter  vouched  for  by  equerries 
of  the  Queen  and  several  earls  each,  and  who  go 
later  to  the  Island  in  our  cast-off  shoes  and  with 
some  of  our  friends'  money.  If  the  English 
judged  us  by  the  chance  American  and  we  judged 
them  by  the  average  English  adventurer,  we 
would  go  to  war  again  for  some  reason  or  other 
at  once.  And  yet  that  is  almost  what  we  do. 
We  judge  by  the  men  who  make  themselves  con- 
spicuous, who  force  themselves  on  our  notice, 
whether  they  do  it  by  bragging  offensively  in  a 
railway  carriage,  or  by  borrowing  money,  or  fail- 
ing to  pay  their  club  dues.  We  forget  that  the 
gentleman,  whether  he  comes  from  New  York  or 
London  or  Athens,  is  not  conspicuous,  but  passes 
by  unheard,  like  the  angels  we  entertain  una- 

14 


210  OUR  ENGLISH  COUSINS 

wares,  and  that  where  a  gentleman  is  concerned 
there  can  be  no  international  differences.  There 
can  only  be  one  sort  of  a  gentleman :  there  can 
be  all  varieties  of  cads.  An  Englishman  used  to 
argue  last  summer  that  he  was  quite  fair  in  judg- 
ing the  Americans  as  a  people  by  the  average 
American,  and  not  by  those  he  is  pleased  to  like 
land  respect.  He  said  they  were  not  "  represen- 
tative" Americans,  and  that  we  could  not  argue 
that  our  best  exponents  of  what  Americans 
should  and  could  be  should  represent  us,  which 
was  of  course  quite  absurd.  When  the  English 
enter  a  yacht  for  an  international  race  they  en- 
ter their  best  yacht,  not  the  third  or  fourth  rate 
yachts.  No  women  are  more  intelligent  and 
womanly  and  sweet,  and  with  a  quicker  sense  of 
humor,  than  the  best  of  the  American  women  ; 
and  no  men  that  I  have  met  anywhere  more  tru- 
ly courteous  and  clever  than  the  best  American 
men;  and  it  is  by  these  we  should  be  judged, 
not  by  the  American  who  scratches  his  name 
over  cathedrals  when  the  verger  isn't  looking, 
nor  the  young  women  who  race  through  the 
halls  of  the  Victoria  Hotel. 

All  of  this  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  re- 
fers to  the  Englishman's  manner,  his  outside,  his 
crust,  his  bark,  and  bears  in  no  way  upon  his 
spirit  of  hospitality  which  it  disguises,  but  which 
is,  nevertheless,  much  his  best  point,  and  in  which 
he  far  outshines  his  American  cousin.  If  you 


211 


question  this,  consider  what  he  gives,  and  how 
generously  he  gives  it,  in  comparison  with  what 
we  give  to  him.  Of  course  hospitality  is  not  to 
be  judged  or  gauged  by  its  expense,  nor  by  how 
much  one  makes  by  it.  The  mere  asking  a  man 
to  sit  down  may  breathe  a  truer  hospitality  than 
inviting  him  to  consider  all  that  is  yours  his,  as 
the  Spaniards  do. 

What  do  we  for  the  visiting  Englishman  who 
comes  properly  introduced,  and  with  a  wife  who 
happens  to  be  his  own?  We  ask  him  to  dinner, 
and  put  him  up  at  the  clubs,  and  get  invitations 
to  whatever  is  going  on,  sometimes  to  give  him 
pleasure,  and  sometimes  to  show  him  how  social- 
ly important  we  may  happen  to  be.  In  doing 
any  of  these  things  we  run  no  great  risk,  we  are 
not  placed  in  a  position  from  which  we  cannot 
at  any  moment  withdraw.  He  does  much  more 
than  this  for  the  visiting  American.  For  some 
time,  it  is  true,  he  holds  you  at  arm's-length,  as  I 
have  just  described  ;  he  looks  you  over  and  con- 
siders you,  and  is  brusque  or  silent  with  you  ;  and 
then,  one  fine  day,  when  you  have  despaired  of 
ever  getting  the  small  change  of  every-day  polite- 
ness from  him,  he,  figuratively  speaking,  stuffs 
your  hands  with  bank-notes,  and  says,  "  That's  all 
I  have  at  present ;  spend  it  as  you  like,  and  call 
on  me  for  more  when  it  is  gone."  He  takes  you 
to  his  house  and  makes  you  feel  it  is  your  home. 
He  gives  you  his  servants,  his  house,  his  grounds, 


212  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

his  horses,  his  gun,  and  his  keepers,  and  the  so- 
ciety of  his  wife  and  daughters,  and  passes  you 
on  eventually  to  his  cousins  and  his  sisters  and 
his  brothers.  This  is  a  show  of  confidence 
which  makes  a  dinner  and  a  theatre  party,  or  a 
fortnight's  privileges  at  a  club,  seem  rather  small. 
It  is  true  he  does  not  meet  you  at  the  door 
with  his  family  grouped  about  him  as  though 
they  were  going  to  be  photographed,  and  with 
the  dogs  barking  a  welcome ;  he  lets  you  come 
as  you  would  come  to  your  own  house,  as  natu- 
rally and  with  as  little  ostentation.  But  you 
are  given  to  understand  when  you  are  there  that 
as  long  as  you  turn  up  at  dinner  at  the  right 
hour  you  are  to  do  as  you  please.  You  get  up 
when  you  like,  and  go  to  bed  when  you  like ; 
you  can  fish  for  pike  in  the  lake  in  front  of  the 
house,  or  pick  the  flowers,  or  play  tennis  with 
his  sons  and  daughters,  or  read  in  his  library,  or 
take  the  guide-book  and  wander  over  the  house 
and  find  out  which  is  the  Rubens,  and  trace  the 
family  likeness  on  down  to  the  present  day  by 
means  of  Sir  Joshua  and  Romney  to  Herkomer 
and  Watts,  and  Mendelssohn  in  a  silver  frame 
on  the  centre  table.  He  has  much  more  to 
give  than  we  have,  and  he  gives  it  entirely  and 
without  reserve;  he  only  asks  that  you  will  enjoy 
yourself  after  your  own  fashion,  and  allow  him 
to  go  on  in  his  own  house  in  his  own  way. 
When  a  man  has  as  much  as  this  to  give,  you 


THE    WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS    OF    LONDON         215 

cannot  blame  him  if  he  does  not  cheapen  it  for 
himself  and  for  others  by  throwing  it  open  to 
whoever  comes  in  his  way.  The  club  with  the 
longest  waiting  list  is  generally  the  best  club. 

All  of  this  is  rather  far  away  from  the  Lon- 
don season  of  which  I  began  to  write,  but  it  is 
the  manners  and  characteristics  of  people  which 
make  society,  even  fashionable  society,  and  not 
Gunter  or  Sherry.  You  may  forget  whether  it 
was  the  regimental  band  of  the  First  or  Second 
Lifeguards,  but  you  do  not  forget  that  the  host- 
ess was  gracious  or  rude. 

The  East  End  of  London  is  entirely  too  awful, 
and  too  intricate  a  neighborhood  to  be  dismissed 
in  a  chapter.  It  is  the  back  yard  of  the  greatest 
city  in  the  world,  into  which  all  the  unpleasant 
and  unsightly  things  are  thrown  and  hidden 
away  from  sight,  to  be  dragged  out  occasionally 
and  shaken  before  the  eyes  of  the  West  End  as 
a  warning  or  a  menace.  Sometimes,  or  all  of  the 
time,  missionaries  from  the  universities  and  rest- 
less spirits  of  the  West  End  go  into  it,  and  learn 
more  or  less  about  it,  and  help  here,  and  mend 
there,  but  they  are  as  impotent  as  the  man  who 
builds  a  breakwater  in  front  of  his  cottage  at 
Seabright  and  thinks  he  has  subdued  the  At- 
lantic Ocean.  They  protect  themselves  against 
certain  things  —  ennui  and  selfishness  and  hard- 
heartedness — but  they  must  see  in  the  end  that 
they  gain  more  than  they  can  give;  for  where 


2l6  OUR    ENGLISH   COUSINS 

they  save  one  soul  from  the  burning,  two  are 
born,  still  to  be  saved,  who  will  breed  in  their 
turn  more  souls  to  be  saved. 

There  is  more  earnest  effort  in  the  East  End 
of  London  than  there  is,  I  think,  in  the  east  side 
of  New  York.  I  do  not  mean  that  it  is  more 
honest,  but  that  there  is  more  of  it.  This  is  only 
natural,  as  the  need  is  greater,  and  the  bitter  cry 
of  outcast  London  more  apparent  and  continual 
than  is  the  cry  that  comes  from  the  slums  of 
New  York.  I  have  heard  several  gentlemen 
who  ought  to  know  say  that  the  east  side  of  the 
American  city  is  quite  as  appalling  as  is  the 
Whitechapel  of  London,  but  I  do  not  find  it  so. 
You  cannot  judge  by  appearances  altogether; 
dirt  and  poverty,  after  a  certain  point  is  reached, 
have  no  degrees,  and  one  alley  looks  as  dark  as 
another,  and  one  court -yard  as  dirty;  but  you 
must  decide  by  the  degradation  of  the  people, 
their  morals,  and  their  valuation  of  life,  and 
their  lack  of  ambition.  If  one  judged  by  this 
the  American  slums  would  be  better  in  compari- 
son, although  when  I  say  "  American  "  that  is 
hardly  fair  either,  as  the  lowest  depths  of  degra- 
dation in  New  York  are  touched  by  the  Italians 
and  the  Russian  Jews,  as  it  is  by  the  latter  in 
London,  and  by  the  English  themselves. 

This  must  necessarily  be  a  series  of  obiter  dicta, 
as  I  cannot  quote  in  print  the  incidents  or  repeat 
the  stories  which  go  to  prove  what  I  say.  If  I 


THE   WEST   AND   EAST   ENDS   OF   LONDON         217 

did  attempt  to  prove  it,  somebody  who  works  in 
the  slums  would  come  down  with  a  fine  array  of 
statistics  and  show  how  wrong  I  was.  So  it 
would  be  better  to  take  the  East  End  of  London 
from  the  outside  entirely. 

The  best  time  to  see  the  East  End  is  on  Sunday 
morning  in  Petticoat  Lane,  and  on  Saturday  night 
in  the  streets  which  run  off  the  Commercial  Road 
or  Whitechapel  Road,  or  in  such  alleys  as  Ship's 
Alley,  off  the  Ratcliff  Highway.  On  Sunday 
morning  Petticoat  Lane  is  divided  into  three  thor- 
oughfares made  by  two  rows  of  handcarts,  drays, 
and  temporary  booths  ranged  along  each  gutter. 
The  people  pass  up  and  down  these  three  lanes 
in  a  long,  continuous  stream,  which  stops  and  con- 
gests at  certain  points  of  interest  and  then  breaks 
on  again.  Everything  that  is  sold,  and  most 
things  that  are  generally  given  or  thrown  away, 
are  for  sale  on  this  street  on  Sunday  morning. 
It  is  quite  useless  to  enumerate  them,  "  every- 
thing "is  comprehensive  enough;  the  fact  that 
they  sell  for  nothing  is  the  main  feature  of  in- 
terest. It  is  the  most  excellent  lesson  in  the 
value  of  money  that  the  world  gives.  You  learn 
not  only  the  value  of  a  penny,  but  the  value  of 
a  farthing.  A  silver  sixpence  shines  like  a  dia- 
mond with  the  rare  possibilities  it  presents,  and' 
a  five- pound  note  will  buy  half  a  mile  of  mer- 
chandise. All  of  the  dealers  call  their  wares  at 
one  and  the  same  time,  and  abuse  the  rival  deal- 


2l8  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

ers  by  way  of  relaxation.  The  rival  dealer  doej 
not  mind  this,  but  regards  it  as  a  form  of  adver- 
tisement, and  answers  in  kind,  and  the  crowd 
listens  with  delighted  interest.  "Go  on,"  one  of 
the  men  will  cry  from  the  back  of  his  cart — "  go 
on  an'  buy  his  rotten  clothes.  O'  course  he  sells 
'em  cheap.  'Cos  why !  'Cos  he  never  pays  his 
pore  workin'  people  their  waiges.  He's  a  bloom- 
ing sweater,  'e  is ;  'e  never  gives  nothink  to  his 
workers  but  promises  and  kicks;  that's  all  'Am- 
merstein  gives.  Yes,  you  do  ;  you  know  you  do. 
And  what  'appens,  why,  'is  clothes  is  all  infected 
with  cholera,  and  falls  to  pieces  in  the  sun  and 
shrinks  up  in  the  rain.  They  ain't  fit  for  nothink 
but  to  bury  folks  in,  'cos  if  yer  moves  in  'em  they 
falls  ter  pieces  and  leaves  you  naked.  I  don't 
call  no  names,  but  this  I  ze/zY/say,  'Ammerstein  is 

a thief,  'e  is,  and  a  — 

liar,  and 'is  clothes  is moth-eaten 

cholera  blankets,  robbed  from  'ospitals  and  made 
over."  Then  "  'Ammerstein,"  on  the  next  cart, 
who  has  listened  to  this  with  his  thumbs  in  the 
armholes  of  his  waistcoat,  smiles  cheerfully  and 
says:  "You  musd  egscuse  that  jail-birt  on  the 
nexd  cart.  He  vas  a  clerk  of  mine,  but  he  stole 
oud  of  der  till,  und  I  discharged  him,  and  he  feels 
bat  aboud  id." 

Saturday  night  is  naturally  the  best  time  in 
which  to  visit  the  East  End,  for  the  reason  that 
the  men  and  the  women  have  been  paid  off,  and 


RIVAL   DKALERS   IN   PETTICOAT  LANF 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS   OF    LONDON         221 

are  out  buying  the  next  week's  rations  and  visit- 
ing from  public- house  to  public- house,  and  are 
noisy  and  merry,  or  sullen  and  bent  on  fighting, 
as  the  case  may  be.  The  streets  are  filled  with 
carts  lit  with  flaring  oil- lamps,  and  the  public- 
houses,  open  on  every  side,  are  ablaze  with  gas 
and  glittering  with  mirrors  and  burnished  pewter, 
and  the  sausage  and  fish  shops,  with  these  edibles 
frying  in  the  open  front  windows,  send  out  broad 
rays  of  smoky  light  and  the  odor  of  burning  fat. 
It  is  like  a  great  out-of-door  kitchen,  full  of 
wonderful  colors  and  flaring  lights  and  inky 
shadows,  with  glimpses  of  stout,  florid,  respecta- 
ble working-men's  wives,  with  market  basket  on 
arm,  jostled  by  trembling  hags  of  the  river-front, 
and  starving  wild-eyed  young  men  with  enough 
evil  purpose  in  their  faces  to  do  many  murders, 
and  with  not  enough  power  in  their  poor  ill-fed 
and  unkempt  twisted  bodies  to  strangle  a  child. 
There  are  no  such  faces  to  be  seen  anywhere 
else  in  the  world,  no  such  despair  nor  misery  nor 
ignorance.  They  are  brutal,  sullen,  and  gladless. 
A  number  of  these  men  together  make  you  feel 
an  uneasiness  concerning  your  safety  which  is  not 
the  fear  of  a  fellow-man,  such  as  you  might  con- 
fess to  if  you  met  any  men  alone  in  a  dark  place, 
but  such  as  you  feel  in  the  presence  of  an  animal, 
an  uneasiness  which  comes  from  ignorance  as  to 
what  it  may  possibly  do  next,  and  as  to  how  it 
will  go  about  doing  it. 


222  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

One  night  an  inspector  of  police  woke  fifty  of 
these  men  in  McCarthy's  lodging-house  on  Dor- 
set Street,  off  the  Commercial  Road,  to  exhibit 
them,  and  I  felt  as  though  I  had  walked  into  a 
cage  with  the  keeper.  They  lay  on  strips  of  can- 
vas naked  to  the  waist,  for  it  was  a  warm,  close 
night,  and  as  the  ray  from  the  policeman's  lan- 
tern slid  from  cot  to  cot,  it  showed  the  sunken 
chests  and  ribs  of  some  half-starved  wrecks  of 
the  wharves,  or  the  broad  torso  of  a  "  docker," 
or  a  sailor's  hairy  breast  marked  with  tattooing, 
and  the  throats  of  two  men  scarred  with  long, 
dull  red  lines  where  some  one  had  drawn  a  knife. 
Some  of  them  tossed  and  woke  cursing  and  mut- 
tering, and  then  rested  on  their  elbows,  cowering 
before  the  officers  and  blinking  at  the  light,  or 
sat  erect  and  glared  at  them  defiantly,  and  hailed 
them  with  drunken  bravado. 

"  The  beds  seem  comfortable,"  1  said  to  Mc- 
Carthy, by  way  of  being  civil. 

"  Oh  yes,  sir,"  he  answered, "  comfor'ble  enough, 
only  it  ain't  proper,  after  paying  twopence  for 
your  bed,  to  'ave  a  policeman  a -waking  you  up 
with  a  lamp  in  your  face.  It  'urts  the  'ouse,  that's 
wot  it  does.''  He  added,  gloomily,  "It  droives 
away  trade."  The  most  interesting  group  of 
these  men  I  ever  saw  gathered  together  in  one 
place  was  at  Harwood's  Music-hall.  This  is  a 
place  to  which  every  stranger  in  London  should 
go.  It  is  a  long,  low  building  near  Spitalfields 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST    ENDS   OF    LONDON         223 

Market,  and  there  are  two  performances  a  night, 
one  at  seven  and  another  at  nine.  The  price  of 
admittance  is  fourpence.  The  seats  are  long  deal 
benches  without  arms,  and  the  place  is  always 
crowded  with  men.  I  have  never  seen  a  woman 
there.  The  men  bring  their  bottles  of  bitter  ale 
with  them  and  a  fried  sole  wrapped  in  paper,  and 
as  the  performance  goes  on  they  munch  at  the 
sole  in  one  hand  and  drink  out  of  the  bottle  in 
the  other.  When  a  gentleman  in  the  middle  of 
a  bench  wants  more  room  he  shoves  the  man 
next  him,  and  he  in  turn  shoves  the  next,  and 
he  the  next,  with  the  result  that  the  man  on  the 
end  is  precipitated  violently  into  the  aisle,  to  the 
delight  of  those  around  him.  He  takes  this  ap- 
parently as  a  matter  of  course,  and  without  em- 
barrassment or  show  of  anger  pounds  the  man 
who  has  taken  his  end  seat  in  the  face  and  ribs 
until  he  gets  it  again,  at  which  this  gentleman 
pounds  the  man  who  had  shoved  him,  and  so  it 
goes  on  like  a  row  of  falling  bricks  throughout 
the  length  of  the  bench. 

Sometimes  you  will  see  as  many  as  three  or 
four  of  these  impromptu  battles  running  from 
bench  to  oench  in  the  most  orderly  and  good- 
natured  manner  possible.  Harwood's  has  a  tre- 
mendous sense  of  humor,  but  the  witticisms  of 
its  clientele  are  not  translatable.  The  first  time 
I  went  there  we  were  ushered  into  the  solitary 
private  box,  and  as  our  party  came  in,  owing  to 


224  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS 

our  evening  dress,  or  to  the  fact  that  we  looked 
down,  I  suppose,  too  curiously  on  the  mass  of 
evil,  upturned  faces,  one  of  the  boys  sprang  to 
his  feet  and  cried:  "  Gentlemen,  owin'  to  the  un- 
expected presence  of  the  Prince  of  Wailes,  the 
audience  will  please  rise  and  sing  '  God  save  the 
Queen/ "  which  the  audience  did  with  much 
ironical  solemnity. 

The  orchestra  at  Harvvood's,  which  consists 
of  five  pieces,  is  not  very  good.  One  night  the 
stage-manager  came  before  the  curtain  and  stated 
that  owing  to  the  non-arrival  of  the  sisters  Bar- 
row, who  were  to  do  the  next  turn,  there  would 
be  a  wait  of  ten  minutes ;  "  this,  however,"  he 
added,  "  will  be  made  up  to  you  by  the  gentle- 
men of  the  orchestra,  who  have  kindly  consented 
to  play  a  few  selections."  Instantly  one  of  the 
audience  jumped  to  his  feet,  and  waving  his 
hands  imploringly,  cried,  in  a  voice  of  the  keen- 
est fear  and  entreaty  :  "  Good  Gawd,  governor,  it 
'ain't  our  fault  the  ladies  'aven't  come.  Don't 
turn  the  orchestra  on  us.  We'll  be  good." 

The  East  End  of  London  sprang  into  promi- 
nence of  late  on  account  of  the  murders  which 
were  committed  there.  These  murders  are  not 
yet  far  enough  off  in  the  past  to  have  become 
matters  of  history,  nor  near  enough  to  be  of  "  news 
interest."  It  is  not  my  intention  to  speak  of 
them  now  or  here,  but  twenty  years  or  so  from 
now  the  story  of  these  crimes  must  be  written, 


OWIN    TO  THE   UNEXPECTED    PRESENCE   OF   THE   PRINCE    OF 
WAILES'  " 


THE   WEST   AND    EAST   ENDS  OF    LONDON          227 

for  they  are  undoubtedly  the  most  remarkable 
criminal  event  of  the  century.  But  the  elements 
which  made  them  possible  exist  to-day  in  the 
nature  of  the  neighborhood  and  in  the  condition 
of  the  women  of  the  district.  In  a  minute's  time 
one  can  walk  from  the  grandly  lighted  High 
Street,  Whitechapel,  which  is  like  our  Sixth  Ave- 
nue filled  with  pedestrians  from  the  Bowery,  into 
a  net-work  of  narrow  passageways  and  blind  alleys 
and  covered  courts  as  intricate  and  dirty  as  the 
great  net-work  of  sewers  which  stretches  beneath 
them.  A  criminal  can  turn  into  one  of  these 
courts  and  find  half  a  dozen  openings  leading 
into  other  courts  and  into  dark  alleys,  in  which 
he  can  lose  himself  and  his  pursuers  as  effectively 
as  though  they  were  running  in  a  maze.  This 
fact  explains,  perhaps,  the  escape  of  the  White- 
chapel  murderer,  and  serves  to  excuse  in  some 
degree  the  London  police  for  having  failed  to 
find  him. 

The  East  End  of  London  is  either  to  be  taken 
by  those  who  study  it,  and  whose  aim  and  hope 
are  to  reclaim  it,  seriously,  as  a  great  and  terrible 
problem,  or  from  the  outside  by  those  who  with 
a  morbid  interest  go  to  walk  through  it  and  to 
pass  by  on  the  other  side.  The  life  of  the  White- 
chapel  coster  as  shown  by  Albert  Chevalier  and 
The  Children  of  the  Ghetto  is  a  widely  different 
thing,  yet  both  are  true  and  both  untrue  as  show- 
ing only  one  side. 


228  OUR    ENGLISH    COUSINS  . 

I  confess  to  having  in  no  way  touched  upon 
the  East  End  of  London  deeply.  I  know  and 
have  seen  just  enough  of  it  to  know  how  little 
one  can  judge  of  it  from  the  outside,  and  I  feel 
I  should  make  some  apology  for  having  touched 
upon  it  at  all  to  those  men  and  women  who  are 
working  there,  and  giving  up  their  lives  to  its  re- 
demption. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY,  LOS  ANGELES 

COLLEGE  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


Book  Slip-35w»-9,'62(D2218s4)4280 


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